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A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


A   MIND    THAT 
FOUND  ITSELR 

AN  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


BY 

CLIFFORD  WHITTINGHAM  BEERS 


LONGMANS,   GREEN,  AND   CO, 

91    AND   93    FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW   YORK 

LONDON.  BOMBAY  AND  CALCUTTA 

1908 


Copyright,  1907,  hy 
CLIFFORD  WHITTINGHAM  BEERS 


All  Rights  Reserved 


The  Plimpton  Press  Norwood  Mass.  USA. 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  MY  UNCLE 

SAMUEL  EDWIN  MERWIN 

WHOSE  TIMELY  GENEROSITY  I  BELIEVE  SAVED  MY  LIFE, 

AND    WHOSE    DEATH    HAS    FOREVER     ROBBED 

ME    OF   A    SATISFYING    OPPORTUNITY 

TO    PROVE    MY     GRATITUDE 


INTRODUCTION 

A  STORY  SO  strange  as  to  challenge  belief  must  needs  be 
presented  in  a  way  especially  calculated  to  inspire  con- 
fidence. Thanks  to  Professor  William  James  of  Harvard 
University,  I  am  able  to  cut  off  incredulity  at  its  source 
by  quoting  his  opinion.  That  which  has  already  enlisted  the 
support  of  one  of  the  most  eminent  psychologists  in  America 
is  entitled  at  least  to  a  respectful  hearing  from  laymen. 

95  Irving  St.,  Cambridge,  Mass. 
July  I,  1906. 
Dear  Mr.  Beers: 

Having  at  last  "got  round"  to  your  MS.,  I  have  read  it  with  very 
great  interest  and  admiration  for  both  its  style  and  its  temper.  I 
hope  you  will  finish  it  and  publish  it.  It  is  the  best  written  out 
"case"  that  I  have  seen;  and  you  no  doubt  have  put  your  finger  on 
the  weak  spots  of  our  treatment  of  the  insane,  and  suggested  the  right 
line  of  remedy.  I  have  long  thought  that  if  I  were  a  milliona  ire,  with 
money  to  leave  for  public  purposes,  I  should  endow  "Insanity" 
exclusively. 

You  were  doubtless  a  pretty  intolerable  character  when  the  maniacal 
condition  came  on  and  you  were  bossing  the  imiverse.  Not  only 
ordinary  "tact,"  but  a  genius  for  diplomacy,  must  have  been  needed 
for  avoiding  rows  with  you;  but  you  certainly  were  wrongly  treated 

nevertheless;  and  the  spiteful  Assistant  M.D.  at  deserves  to 

have  his  name  published.      Your  report  is  full  of  instructiveness  for 
doctors  and  attendants  alike. 

The  most  striking  thing  in  it  to  my  mind  is  the  sudden  conversion  of 
you  from  a  delusional  subject  to  a  maniacal  one  —  how  the  whole  delu- 
sional system  disintegrated  the  moment  one  pin  was  drawn  out  by 
your  proving  your  brother  to  be  genuine.  I  never  heard  of  so  rapid 
a  change  in  a  mental  system. 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

You  speak  of  re-writing.  Don't  you  do  it.  You  can  hardly 
improve  your  book.  I  shall  keep  the  MS.  a  week  longer  as  I  wish  to 
impart  it  to  a  friend. 

Smcerely  yours, 

Wm.  James. 

95  Irving  St.,  Cambridge,  Mass. 
November  lo,  1907. 
Dear  Mr.  Beers: 

You  are  welcome  to  use  the  letter  I  wrote  to  you  (on  July  i, 
1906)  after  reading  the  first  part  of  your  MS.  in  any  way  your  judg- 
ment prompts,  whether  as  preface,  advertisement,  or  anything  else. 
Reading  the  rest  of  it  only  heightens  its  importance  in  my  eyes.  In 
style,  in  temper,  in  good  taste,  it  is  irreproachable.  As  for  contents, 
it  is  fit  to  remain  in  literature  as  a  classic  accoimt  "from  within" 
of  an  insane  person's  psychology. 

The  book  ought  to  go  far  toward  helping  along  that  terribly  needed 
reform,  the  amelioration  of  the  lot  of  the  insane  of  our  coimtry,  for 
the  AiKiliary  Society  which  you  propose  is  feasible  (as  numerous 
examples  in  other  fields  show),  and  ought  to  work  important  effects 
on  the  whole  situation. 

You  have  handled  a  difficult  theme  with  great  skill,  and  produced 
a  narrative  of  absorbing  interest  to  scientist  as  well  as  layman.  It 
reads  like  fiction,  but  it  is  not  fiction;  and  this  I  state  emphatically, 
knowing  how  prone  the  uninitiated  are  to  doubt  the  truthfulness  of 
descriptions  of  abnormal  mental  processes. 

With  best  wishes  for  the  success  of  the  book  and  the  plan,  both  of 
which,  I  hope,  will  prove  epoch-making,  I  remain, 

Sincerely  yours, 

Wm.  James. 
Clifford  W.  Beers,  Esq., 

30  Trumbull  Street, 

New  Haven,  Connecticut. 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

PAGE 

Chapters  I-XXV i 


PART  II 
Chapters  XXVI-XXXI 212 

PART  III 
Chapters  XXXII-XXXV 256 

PART  IV 
Chapters  XXXVI-XXXIX 291 

Appendices        319-363 


THIS    BOOK    IS    WRITTEN  BY   ONE  WHOSE  RARE 

EXPERIENCES  IMPEL  HIM  TO  PLEAD  FOR 

THOSE     AFFLICTED     THOUSANDS 

LEAST    ABLE    TO     SPEAK 

FOR  THEMSELVES 


A  Mind  That  Found  Itself 


PART  I 


This  story  is  derived  from  as  human  a  document  as  ever 
existed;  and,  because  of  its  uncommon  nature,  perhaps  no 
one  thing  contributes  so  much  to  its  value  as  its  authenticity. 
It  is  an  autobiography,  and  more:  in  part  it  is  a  biography; 
for,  in  telling  the  story  of  my  life,  I  must  relate  the  history  of 
another  self  —  a  self  which  was  dominant  from  my  twenty- 
fourth  to  my  twenty-sixth  year.  During  that  period  I  was 
unlike  what  I  had  been,  or  what  I  have  been  since.  The 
biographical  part  of  my  autobiography  might  be  called  the 
history  of  a  mental  civil  war,  which  I  fought  single-handed 
on  a  battle-field  that  lay  within  the  compass  of  my  skull. 
An  Army  of  Unreason,  composed  of  the  cunning  and  treach- 
erous thoughts  of  an  unfair  foe,  attacked  my  bewildered 
consciousness  with  cruel  persistency,  and  would  have  de- 
stroyed me,  had  not  a  triumphant  Reason  finally  interposed 
a  superior  strategy  that  saved  me  from  my  unnatural  self. 

I  am  not  telling  the  story  of  my  life  just  to  write  a  book. 
I  tell  it  because  it  seems  my  plain  duty  to  do  so.  A  marvel- 
ous escape  from  death  and  a  miraculous  return  to  health 
after  an  apparently  fatal  illness  are  enough  to  make  a  man 
ask  himself:  For  what  purpose  was  my  life  spared?  That 
question  I  have  asked  myself,  and  this  book  is,  in  part,  an 


a  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

answer.  Until  some  one  tells  just  such  a  story  as  mine  and 
tells  it  sanely,  needless  abuse  of  helpless  thousands  will  con- 
tinue. Great  advances  toward  the  intelligent  and  humane 
treatment  of  the  insane  have  no  doubt  been  made  —  ad- 
vances so  great  that  the  majority  of  insane  patients  in  this 
country  are  now  treated  with  a  consideration  which  amounts 
to  kindness.  But  a  helpless  and  irresponsible  minority, 
numbering  thousands,  are  still  being  subjected  to  abuse  as 
brutal  as  any  ever  visited  on  insane  persons  during  those 
centuries  when  the  strong  took  pleasure  in  torturing  the 
weak. 

That  insane  persons  are  still  abused  is  suspected  by  the 
public  at  large;  but  direct  and  convincing  proof  of  that  fact 
is  seldom  presented.  I  am  sure  that  the  proof  I  now 
offer  will  ring  true,  and  will  contribute  to  the  correction  of 
many  mistaken  ideas  regarding  the  insane  and  their  treat- 
ment, and  regarding  insanity  itself.  In  the  discussion  of 
the  crude  methods  of  treatment  which  now  obtain,  all  abuses 
which  fell  under  my  observation  will  of  necessity  be  laid  bare. 
A  former  victim  of  these  methods,  I  feel  at  liberty  to  attack 
them;  and  the  right  to  do  so  is  doubly  mine  as  I  have  a  rem- 
edy to  offer,  or  at  least  a  campaign  to  propose.  If  intelli- 
gently carried  on,  it  will,  I  feel  confident,  largely  atone  for 
one  of  the  blackest  pages  in  history.  As  the  hostages  which. 
Civilization  gives  to  Progress^  the  insane  are  entitled  to  the 
best  of  treatment.  Certainly  they  are  not  deserving  of  the 
worst. 

The  subject  which  I  treat  is  not  alone  humanitarian.  Its 
economic  importance  can  hardly  be  overestimated.  The 
ravages  of  insanity  cost  the  world  millions  of  dollars  and 
thousands  of  lives  each  year.  There  are  not  fewer  than  two 
hundred  thousand  insane  persons  in  our  asylums,  hospitals, 
sanatoriums,  and  homes.     There  are  at  least  one  hundred 


A  MIND   THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  3 

and  fifty  thousand  mental  incompetents  in  Great  Britain, 
and  a  like  number  in  France,  and  in  Germany.  Every  civ- 
ilized country  has  its  burdensome  proportion.  Nor  are  these 
afflicted  ones  the  only  sufferers.  It  is  safe  to  assume  that 
each  insane  person  has  at  least  five  relatives  and  friends  in- 
terested in  his  welfare.  Granting  this,  there  are  a  million 
people  in  this  country — one  eightieth  of  the  entire  population 
—  directly  or  indirectly  affected  by  this  most  dreaded  dis- 
ease. And  any  one  of  the  remaining  seventy-nine  millions 
may  sooner  or  later  be  forced  by  Fate  to  join  this  army  of 
distress. 

In  spite  of  the  gravity  of  these  conditions  comparatively 
little  is  being  done  to  combat  the  present  irresistible  advance 
of  insanity.  No  important  phase  of  life  is  so  generally  mis- 
understood; and  no  equally  important  subject  is  so  consist- 
ently and  willingly  ignored  by  all,  except  the  few  whose  paid 
duty  it  is  to  care  for  the  insane.  The  only  real  fight  waged 
against  this  insidious  disease  is  being  carried  on  in  a  desul- 
tory manner  by  a  few  unselfish  scientists  who  are  devoting 
their  time  to  investigation,  in  most  instances  without  such 
support  as  they  deserve. 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  many  forms  of  insan- 
ity will  finally  be  rendered  amenable  to  treatment.  With 
small-pox  conquered;  diphtheria  doomed;  yellow  fever  con- 
fined within  limits;  and  tuberculosis  partially  controlled 
and  not  infrequently  cured,  why  should  insanity  remain  for- 
ever on  the  list  of  incurable  diseases  ?  Though  some  forms 
of  it  may  continue  to  baffle  the  alienist,  recognized  author- 
ities predict  that  most  forms  will  in  time  prove  curable.  But 
the  day  of  its  even  partial  defeat  cannot  come  until  system- 
atic scientific  research  has  first  done  its  work — a  work  of 
years.  Why  should  such  research,  on  a  scale  in  keeping 
with  the  importance  of  the  problem,  be  longer  delayed  ?  The 


4  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

fight  may  cost  millions,  but  will  not  the  eventual  payment  of 
an  inevitable  indemnity  more  than  offset  the  cost?  Even  if 
there  were  no  economic  advantage  to  be  gained,  would  not 
the  dividend  which  will  be  added  directly  to  the  sum  of  human 
happiness  be  a  sufficient  reward?  The  people  of  this  age 
can  erect  no  more  enduring  monument  to  themselves  than 
by  doing  that  which  will  make  it  possible  for  posterity  to 
regard  the  Twentieth  Century  as  the  century  in  which  the 
cause  and  cure  for  most  forms  of  mental  diseases  were  dis- 
covered. 

In  presenting  this  book  I  have  several  definite  purposes. 
First :  I  hope  to  rob  insanity  of  many  of  its  terrors  —  at 
least  those  which  do  not  rightly  belong  to  it.  Most  children 
are  afraid  of  the  dark  until  they  learn  that  its  hidden  mon- 
sters are  imaginary.  But  this  childish  fear  is  a  sublime  men- 
tal process  compared  with  the  unreasoning  dread  of  insanity 
that  prevails  in  the  minds  of  most  adults  throughout  the 
civilized  world.  Under  certain  conditions  an  insane  person 
is,  without  doubt,  the  unhappiest  of  men,  but  I  shall  prove 
that  sometimes  he  is  not  less  happy  —  is  indeed  happier  — 
than  a  sane  person  under  the  most  favorable  conditions.  To 
a  startling  degree  the  unhappiness  of  the  insane  is  directly 
due  to  the  perhaps  unconscious  lack  of  consideration  with 
which  they  are  treated.  This  is  fortunate;  for  these  external 
contributory  causes  can  be  eliminated;  —  and  no  one 
thing  will  go  so  far  toward  eliminating  them  as  the  uni- 
versal adoption  and  continued  use  of  the  humane  and 
equally  scientific  principle  of  Non-Restraint  in  the  treat- 
ment of  insanity.  As  the  reader  will  come  to  know:  — 
doing  to  the  insane  as  the  sane  would  be  done  by  is  the 
essence  of  Non-Restraint. 

Secondly:  Books  alone  can  never  produce  the  desired 
results.     But  a  society  founded  and  endowed  for  the  sole 


A  MmD  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  5 

purpose  of  solving  this  stubborn  problem  can  at  least  raise 
the  standard  of  treatment  to  such  a  level  that  existing  short- 
comings will  be  forever  done  away  with.  A  campaign  of 
education  carried  out  under  the  auspices  of  a  National  Soci- 
ety should  lead  to  effectual  reform,  make  even  petty 
abuses  appear  heinous,  and  thus  insure,  upon  discovery, 
the  correction  of  all  abuses. 

Thirdly:  It  is  my  hope  that  the  beneficent  rich  may  be 
prompted  to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  States  and  Nations  by 
supplying  funds  for  the  erection  and  endowment  of  model 
institutions  wherein  mental  and  nervous  diseases,  in  their 
incipient  and  curable  stages,  may  be  treated  with  the  max- 
imum efficiency.  With  such  institutions  —  hospitals  and 
sanatoriums  —  in  operation,  thousands  of  those  who  now  are 
committed  indiscriminately  could  be  restored  to  health  and 
society,  without  having  suffered  the  unfair  stigma  of  legal 
incompetence;  and  patients  in  our  State  Hospitals  could 
then  receive  that  individual  treatment  which  will  insure  the 
recovery  of  so  many  of  them  and,  at  the  same  time,  enable 
those  who  do  not  recover  to  lead  comfortable,  even  happy 
lives. 


II 

I  WAS  born  shortly  after  sunset  about  thirty  years  ago. 
My  ancestors,  natives  of  England,  settled  in  this  country  not 
long  after  the  Mayflower  first  sailed  into  Plymouth  Harbor. 
And  the  blood  of  these  ancestors,  by  time  and  the  happy 
union  of  a  northern  man  and  a  southern  woman  —  my 
parents  —  has  perforce  been  blended  into  blood  truly  Amer- 
ican. 

The  first  years  of  my  life  were  not  unlike  those  of  thousands 
of  other  American  boys.  Nothing  out  of  the  ordinary 
occurred.  At  the  usual  age,  I  entered  a  public  Grammar 
School  in  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  and  was  graduated  in 
1 89 1.  In  the  fall  of  that  year  I  entered  the  Hillhouse  High 
School  of  the  same  city.  My  school  courses  were  completed 
with  as  little  trouble  as  scholastic  distinction.  I  always  man- 
aged to  gain  promotion,  however,  when  it  was  due;  and, 
though  few  of  my  teachers  credited  me  with  real  ability,  they 
were  always  able  to  detect  a  certain  latent  capacity,  which 
they  evidently  believed  would  one  day  develop  sufficiently 
to  prevent  me  from  disgracing  them. 

Upon  entering  the  High  School  I  had  such  ambitions  as 
any  schoolboy  is  apt  to  have.  I  wished  to  secure  an  election 
to  a  certain  secret  society;  that  gained,  I  wished  to  become 
business  manager  of  a  monthly  magazine,  published  by  that 
society.  In  these  ambitions  I  succeeded.  For  one  of  my 
age  I  had  more  than  an  average  love  of  business.  Indeed, 
I  deliberately  set  about  learning  to  play  the  guitar  well 
enough   to  become  eligible  for   membership  in  the  Banjo- 

6 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  7 

Club  —  and  this  for  no  more  aesthetic  purpose  than  to 
place  myself  in  hne  for  the  position  of  manager. 

In  athletics  there  was  but  one  game,  tennis,  in  which  I  was 
actively  interested.  Its  quick  give-and-take  suited  my  tem- 
perament, and  so  fond  was  I  of  it  that  during  one  summer  I 
played  not  fewer  than  four  thousand  games.  As  I  had  an 
aptitude  for  tennis,  and  devoted  more  time  to  it  than  did  any 
of  my  schoolmates,  it  was  not  surprising  that  I  acquired  skill 
enough  to  win  the  school  championship  during  my  senior 
year.  But  that  success  was  not  due  entirely  to  my  superior- 
ity as  a  player.  It  was  due  in  part  to  what  I  considered  un- 
fair treatment;  and  the  fact  well  illustrates  a  certain  trait  of 
character  which  has  often  stood  me  in  good  stead.  Among 
the  spectators  at  the  final  match  of  the  tournament  were 
several  girls.  These  schoolmates,  who  lived  in  my  neigh- 
borhood, had  mistaken  for  snobbishness  a  certain  boyish 
diffidence  for  which  few  people  gave  me  credit.  When  we 
passed  each  other,  almost  daily,  this  group  of  girls  and  I, 
our  mutual  sign  of  recognition  was  a  look  in  an  opposite 
direction.  Now  my  opponent  was  well  liked  by  these  same 
girls  and  was  entitled  to  their  support.  Accordingly  they 
applauded  his  good  plays,  which  was  fair.  They  did  not 
applaud  my  good  plays,  which  was  also  fair.  But  what  was 
not  fair  was  that  they  should  applaud  my  bad  plays.  Their 
doing  so  roiled  my  blood,  and  thanks  to  those  who  would 
have  had  me  lose,  I  won. 

One  more  incident  of  my  boyhood  days  may  assist  the 
reader  to  make  my  acquaintance.  In  my  early  teens  I  was, 
for  one  year,  a  member  of  a  boy-choir.  Barring  my  voice, 
I  was  a  good  chorister,  and,  like  all  good  choir-boys,  I  was 
distinguished  by  that  seraphic  passiveness  from  which  a 
reaction  of  some  kind  is  to  be  expected  immediately  after  a 
service  or  rehearsal.     On  one  occasion  this  reaction  in  me 


8  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

manifested  itself  in  a  fist  fight  with  a  fellow  choir-boy. 
Though  I  cannot  recall  the  time  when  I  have  not  relished 
verbal  encounters,  physical  encounters  had  never  been  to 
my  taste,  and  I  did  not  seek  this  fight.  My  assailant  really 
goaded  me  into  it.  If  the  honors  were  not  mine,  at  least  I 
must  have  acquitted  myself  creditably,  for  an  interested 
passer-by  made  a  remark  which  I  have  never  forgotten: 
"That  boy  is  all  right  after  he  gets  started,"  said  he.  About 
twelve  years  later  I  did  get  started,  and  could  that  passer-by 
have  seen  me  on  any  one  of  several  occasions,  he  would  have 
had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  his  was  a  prophetic  eye. 

In  June,  1894, 1  received  a  High  School  diploma.  Shortly 
afterwards  I  took  my  examinations  for  Yale,  and  the  follow- 
ing September  entered  the  Sheffield  Scientific  School. 

The  last  week  of  June,  1894,  was  an  important  one  in  my 
life.  An  event  then  occurred  which  undoubtedly  changed 
my  career  completely.  It  was  the  direct  cause  of  my  mental 
collapse  six  years  later,  and  of  the  distressing  and,  in  some 
instances,  strange  and  delightful  experiences  on  which  this 
book  is  based.  The  event  was  the  illness  of  an  older 
brother,  who,  late  in  June,  1894,  was  stricken  with  what 
was  thought  to  be  epilepsy.  Few  diseases  can  so  disorgan- 
ize a  household  and  distress  its  members.  My  brother  had 
enjoyed  perfect  health  up  to  the  time  he  was  stricken;  and, 
as  there  had  never  been  a  suggestion  of  epilepsy,  or  any 
like  disease,  in  either  branch  of  the  family,  the  affliction 
came  as  a  bolt  from  a  clear  sky.  Everything  possible 
was  done  to  effect  a  cure,  but  without  avail.  On  July 
4th,  1900,  he  died  at  the  City  Hospital,  in  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  after  a  six  years'  illness,  two  years  of  which 
were  spent  at  home,  one  year  in  a  trip  around  the 
world  in  a  sailing  vessel,  and  most  of  the  remainder  on  a 
farm  near  Hartford.    The  doctors  decided  that  a  tumor  at 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  9 

the  base  of  the  brain  had  caused  his  malady  and  his  death. 
That  tumor  was  caused  probably  by  a  fall  which  he  had 
suffered  some  years  before,  and  to  which  no  attention  had 
been  paid  at  the  time. 

As  I  was  in  college  when  my  brother  was  first  stricken  I 
had  more  time  at  my  disposal  than  the  other  members  of 
the  family,  and  for  that  reason  spent  much  of  it  with  him. 
Though  his  attacks  during  the  first  year  occurred  only  at 
night,  it  was  the  fear  that  they  might  occur  during  the  day,  in 
public,  which  affected  my  nerves  from  the  beginning. 

Now,  if  a  brother  who  had  enjoyed  perfect  health  all  his 
life  could  be  stricken  with  epilepsy,  what  was  to  prevent  my 
being  similarly  affiicted?  This  was  the  thought  that  soon 
got  possession  of  my  mind.  The  more  I  considered  it  and 
him,  the  more  nervous  I  became;  and  the  more  nervous,  the 
more  convinced  that  my  own  breakdown  was  only  a  ques- 
tion of  time.  Doomed  to  what  I  then  considered  a  living 
death,  I  thought  of  epilepsy,  I  dreamed  epilepsy,  until  thou- 
sands of  times  during  the  six  years  that  this  disquieting  idea 
persisted,  my  overwrought  imagination  seemed  to  drag  me 
to  the  very  verge  of  an  attack.  Yet  at  no  time  during  my 
life  have  these  early  fears  been  realized. 

For  the  fourteen  months  succeeding  the  time  my  brother 
was  first  stricken,  I  was  greatly  harassed  with  fear;  but  not 
until  later  did  my  nerves  really  conquer  me.  I  remember 
distinctly  when  the  break  came.  It  happened  in  Novem- 
ber, 1895,  during  a  recitation  in  German.  That  hour  in  the 
class-room  was  one  of  the  most  disagreeable  I  ever  experi- 
enced. It  seemed  as  if  my  nerves  had  snapped,  like  so  many 
minute  bands  of  rubber  stretched  beyond  their  elastic  limit. 
At  this  time,  and  on  many  subsequent  like  occasions,  the 
one  thought  uppermost  in  my  mind,  though  I  gave  no  out- 
ward evidence  of  my  great  despair,  was  that  my  psychic 


lO  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

convulsion  would  become  physical.  My  imagination  seemed 
to  tear  my  body  into  shreds.  Had  I  had  the  courage  to 
leave  the  room,  I  should  have  done  so;  but  I  sat  as  if  para- 
lyzed until  the  class  was  dismissed. 

That  term  I  did  not  again  attend  recitations.  Continuing 
my  studies  at  home  I  passed  satisfactory  examinations  which 
enabled  me  to  resume  my  place  in  the  class-room  the  follow- 
ing January.  During  the  remainder  of  my  college  years  I 
seldom  entered  a  recitation-room  with  any  other  feeling  than 
that  of  dread,  though  the  absolute  assurance  that  I  should 
not  be  called  upon  to  recite  did  mitigate  the  misery.  The 
professors,  who  had  been  told  about  my  state  of  health  and 
the  cause  of  it,  invariably  treated  me  with  consideration; 
but,  though  I  believe  they  never  doubted  the  genuineness 
of  my  excuse,  it  was  no  easy  matter  to  keep  them  convinced 
for  almost  two  of  the  three  years  of  my  course.  My  inability 
to  recite  was  not  due  usually  to  any  lack  of  preparation. 
However  well  prepared  I  might  be,  the  moment  a  professor 
called  upon  me  to  recite,  a  mingling  of  a  thousand  disconcert- 
ing sensations,  and  the  distinct  thought  that  at  last  the  dread 
attack  was  at  hand,  would  suddenly  intervene  and  deprive 
me  of  all  but  the  power  to  say,  "Not  prepared."  Weeks 
would  pass  without  any  other  record  being  placed  opposite 
my  name  than  a  zero,  or  a  blank  indicating  that  I  had  not 
been  called  upon  at  all.  Occasionally,  however,  a  profes- 
sor, in  justice  to  himself  and  to  the  other  students,  would 
compel  me  to  recite,  and  at  such  times  I  managed  to  make 
enough  of  a  recitation  to  hold  my  place  in  the  class. 

When  I  entered  Yale  I  had  four  definite  ambitions:  first, 
to  secure  an  election  to  a  certain  secret  society;  second,  to 
become  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Yale  Record,  an  illus- 
trated humorous  bi-weekly;  third  (granting  that  I  should 
have  succeeded  in  this  latter  ambition),  to  convince  my  col- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  II 

leagues  that  I  should  have  the  position  of  business-mana- 
ger —  an  office  which  I  sought,  not  for  the  honor,  but  be- 
cause I  believed  it  would  enable  me  to  earn  an  amount  of 
money  at  least  equal  to  the  cost  of  tuition  for  my  three  years 
at  Yale;  fourth  (and  this  was  my  chief  ambition),  to  win 
my  diploma  within  the  prescribed  time.  These  four  ambi- 
tions I  fortunately  achieved. 

A  man's  college  days,  collectively,  are  usually  his  happi- 
est. Most  of  mine  were  not  happy.  Yet  I  look  back  upon 
them  with  great  satisfaction,  for  I  feel  that  I  was  fortunate 
enough  to  absorb  some  of  that  intangible  but  very  real  ele- 
ment known  as  the  "Yale  spirit."  This  has  helped  to  keep 
Hope  alive  within  me  during  my  most  discouraged  moments, 
and  now  makes  the  accomplishment  of  my  purpose  seem 
easy  and  sure. 


Ill 

On  the  thirtieth  day  of  June,  1897,  I  was  graduated  at 
Yale.  Had  I  then  reahzed  that  I  was  a  sick  man  I  could  and 
would  have  taken  a  rest;  but,  in  a  way,  I  had  become  ac- 
customed to  the  ups  and  downs  of  a  nervous  existence,  and, 
as  I  could  not  really  afford  a  rest,  six  days  after  my  gradua- 
tion I  entered  upon  the  duties  of  a  clerk  in  the  office  of  the 
Collector  of  Taxes  in  the  city  of  New  Haven.  I  was  fortunate 
in  securing  such  a  position  at  that  time,  for  the  hours  were 
comparatively  short  and  the  work  as  congenial  as  any  could 
have  been  under  the  circumstances.  I  entered  the  Tax  Office 
with  the  intention  of  staying  only  until  such  time  as  I  should 
secure  a  position  in  New  York.  About  a.  year  later  I  secured 
the  desired  position.  After  remaining  in  it  for  eight  months 
(with  the  firm  whose  employ  I  re-entered  in  1904),  I  left  it, 
in  order  to  take  a  position  which  seemed  to  offer  a  field  of 
endeavor  more  to  my  taste.  From  May,  1899,  till  the  middle 
of  June,  1900,  I  was  a  clerk  in  one  of  the  smaller  life  insur- 
ance companies,  whose  home  office  was  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  what  some  men  consider  the  center  of  the  universe. 
To  be  in  the  very  heart  of  the  financial  district  of  New 
York  appealed  strongly  to  my  imagination.  As  a  result  of 
certain  mistaken  ideals,  the  making  of  money  was  then  a 
passion  with  me.  I  foolishly  wished  to  taste  the  bitter-sweet 
of  power  based  on  wealth. 

For  the  first  eighteen  months  of  my  life  in  New  York,  my 
health  seemed  no  worse  than  it  had  been  during  the  preceding 
three  years.    The  old  dread  still  possessed  me.     I  continued 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  13 

to  have  my  more  and  less  nervous  days,  weeks,  and  months. 
In  March,  1900,  however,  there  came  a  change  for  the  worse. 
At  that  time  I  had  a  severe  attack  of  grip  which  incapaci- 
tated me  for  two  weeks.  As  was  to  be  expected  in  my  case, 
this  illness  seriously  depleted  my  vitality,  and  left  me 
in  a  frightfully  depressed  condition  —  a  depression  which 
continued  to  grow  upon  me  until  the  final  crash  came,  on 
June  23d,  1900.  The  events  of  that  day,  seemingly  disas- 
trous as  then  viewed,  but  all  for  the  best  as  the  issue  proved, 
forced  me  along  paths  traveled  by  thousands,  but  compre- 
hended by  few. 

I  had  continued  to  perform  my  clerical  duties  until  June 
15th.  On  that  day  I  was  compelled  to  stop,  and  that  at 
once.  I  had  reached  a  point  where  my  will  had  to  capitu- 
late to  Unreason  —  that  unscrupulous  usurper.  My  pre- 
vious five  years  as  a  neurasthenic  had  led  me  to  believe  that 
I  had  experienced  all  the  disagreeable  sensations  an  over- 
worked and  unstrung  nervous  system  could  suffer.  But  on 
this  day  several  new  and  terrifying  sensations  seized  me  and 
rendered  me  all  but  helpless.  My  condition,  however,  was 
not  apparent  even  to  those  who  worked  with  me  at  the  same 
desk.  I  remember  trying  to  speak  and  at  times  finding  my- 
self unable  to  give  utterance  to  my  thoughts.  Though  I  was 
able  to  answer  questions,  that  fact  hardly  diminished  my 
feeling  of  apprehension,  for  a  single  failure  in  an  attempt  to 
speak  will  stagger  any  man,  no  matter  what  his  state  of 
health.  I  tried  to  copy  certain  records  in  the  day's  work, 
but  my  hand  was  too  unsteady,  and  I  found  it  difficult  to 
read  the  words  and  figures  presented  to  my  tired  vision  in 
blurred  confusion. 

That  afternoon,  conscious  that  some  terrible  calamity  was 
impending,  but  not  knowing  what  would  be  its  nature,  I 
performed  a  very  curious  act.     Certain  early  literary  efforts 


14  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

which  had  failed  of  publication  in  the  college  paper,  but 
which  I  had  jealously  cherished  for  several  years,  I  utterly 
destroyed.  Then,  after  a  hurried  arrangement  of  my  affairs, 
I  took  an  early  afternoon  train,  and  soon  found  myself  at 
home.  Home  life  did  not  make  me  better,  and,  except  for 
three  or  four  short  walks,  I  did  not  go  out  of  the  house  at  all 
until  June  23d,  when  I  went  in  a  most  unusual  way.  To 
relatives  I  said  little  about  my  state  of  health,  beyond  the 
general  statement  that  I  had  never  felt  worse  —  a  statement 
which,  when  made  by  a  neurasthenic,  means  much  but  proves 
little.  For  five  years  I  had  had  my  ups  and  downs,  and 
both  my  relatives  and  myself  had  begun  to  look  upon  these 
as  things  which  would  probably  be  corrected  in  and  by  time. 
Had  the  seriousness  of  my  condition  been  realized,  earlier 
arrangements  would  have  been  made  which  would  have 
enabled  me  to  take  the  long  rest  I  needed.  I  am  now  glad 
that  no  such  rest  was  taken.  Had  I  been  restored  to  health 
sooner  than  I  was,  or  under  different  conditions,  I  should 
not  have  suffered  and  learned;  nor  should  I  have  tasted  the 
peculiar  joy  of  a  life  little  known  and  less  understood  by 
mankind  at  large. 

The  day  after  my  home-coming  I  made  up  my  mind,  or 
that  part  of  it  which  was  still  within  my  control,  that  the 
time  had  come  to  quit  business  entirely  and  take  a  rest  of 
months.  I  even  arranged  with  a  younger  brother  to  set  out 
at  once  for  some  quiet  place  in  the  White  Mountains,  where 
I  hoped  to  s,teady  my  shattered  nerves.  At  this  time  (to 
say  nothing  of  the  constantly  recurring  thought  that  I  was 
about  to  fall  into  an  epileptic  attack)  I  felt  as  though  in  a 
tremor  from  head  to  foot. 

This  dread  to  which  I  so  frequently  refer  was  a  thing  which 
I  seldom,  if  ever,  referred  to  while  it  persisted.  On  more 
than  one  occasion  I  did  say  to  my  friends  that  I  would  rather 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  15 

die  than  live  an  epileptic;  yet,  if  I  rightly  remember,  I  never 
declared  the  actual  fear  that  I  was  doomed  to  bear  such  an 
affliction.  However,  I  believe  that  I  said  on  a  few  occasions, 
though  without  meaning  it  at  the  time,  that,  if  necessary,  I 
should  kill  myself  rather  than  endure  what  I  then  thought, 
but  do  not  now  think,  the  most  miserable  of  lives.  Though 
I  held  the  mad  belief  that  I  should  suffer  epilepsy,  I  held  the 
sane  hope,  amounting  to  belief,  that  I  should  escape  it. 
This  fact  may  account,  in  a  measure,  for  my  six  years  of 
endurance. 

On  the  1 8th  of  June  I  felt  so  much  worse  that  I  went 
to  my  bed  and  stayed  there  until  the  23d.  During  the  night 
of  the  1 8th  my  persistent  dread  became  a  false  belief 
—  a  delusion.  What  I  had  long  expected  I  now  became 
convinced  had  at  last  occurred.  I  believed  myself  to  be  a 
confirmed  epileptic,  and  that  conviction  was  stronger  than 
any  ever  held  by  a  sound  intellect.  The  half-resolve,  made 
before  my  mind  was  actually  impaired,  namely,  that  I  would 
kill  myself  rather  than  live  the  life  I  dreaded,  now  divided 
my  attention  with  the  belief  that  the  stroke  had  fallen.  From 
that  time  my  one  thought  was  to  hasten  the  end,  for  I  felt 
that  I  should  lose  the  chance  to  die  should  relatives  find 
me  in  a  seizure  of  the  supposed  malady. 

Considering  the  state  of  my  mind  and  my  inability  at  that 
time  to  appreciate  the  enormity  of  such  an  end  as  I  half  con- 
templated, my  suicidal  purpose  was  not  entirely  selfish.  That 
I  had  never  seriously  contemplated  suicide  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  I  had  not  provided  myself  with  the  means  of  accom- 
plishing it,  despite  my  habit,  which  has  long  been  remarked 
by  those  intimately  acquainted  with  me,  of  preparing  for 
unlikely  contingencies.  So  far  as  I  had  the  control  of  my 
faculties,  it  must  be  admitted  that  I  deliberated;  but,  strictly 
speaking,  the  rash  act  which  followed  cannot  correctly  be 


l6  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

called  an  attempt  at  suicide  —  for,  how  can  a  man  who  is 
not  himself  kill  himself? 

Soon  my  disordered  brain  was  busy  with  schemes  for 
death.  I  distinctly  remember  one  which  included  a  row  on 
Lake  Whitney,  near  New  Haven.  This  row  I  intended  to 
take  in  the  most  treacherous  boat  obtainable.  Such  a  craft 
could  be  easily  upset,  and  I  should  so  bequeath  to  relatives 
and  friends  a  sufficient  number  of  reasonable  doubts  to  rob 
my  death  of  the  usual  stigma.  I  also  remember  searching 
for  some  deadly  drug  which  I  hoped  to  find  about  the  house. 
But  the  quantity  and  quality  of  what  I  found  was  not  such 
as  I  dared  to  trust.  I  then  thought  of  severing  my  jugular 
vein,  even  going  so  far  as  to  test  against  my  throat  the  edge 
of  a  razor  which,  after  the  deadly  impulse  first  asserted  itself, 
I  had  secreted  in  a  convenient  place.  I  really  wished  to  die, 
but  so  uncertain  and  bloody  a  method  did  not  appeal  to  me. 
Nevertheless,  had  I  felt  sure  that  in  my  tremulous  frenzy  I 
could  accomplish  the  act  with  skilful  dispatch,  I  should 
at  once  have  ended  my  troubles. 

My  imaginary  attacks  were  now  recurring  with  distracting 
frequency,  and  I  was  in  constant  fear  of  discovery.  During 
these  three  or  four  days  I  slept  scarcely  at  all  —  even  the 
medicine  given  to  induce  sleep  having  little  effect.  Though 
inwardly  frenzied,  I  gave  no  outward  sign  of  my  condition. 
Most  of  the  time  I  remained  quietly  in  bed.  I  spoke  but 
seldom.  I  had  practically,  though  not  entirely,  lost  the  power 
of  speech;  and  my  almost  unbroken  silence  aroused  no  sus- 
picions as  to  the  seriousness  of  my  plight. 

By  a  process  of  elimination,  all  suicidal  methods  but  one 
had  at  last  been  put  aside.  On  that  one  my  mind  now  cen- 
tered. My  room  was  on  the  fourth  floor  of  a  house  —  one 
of  a  block  of  five  —  in  which  my  parents  lived.  The  house 
stood  several  feet  back  from  the  street.     The  sills  of  my  win- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


17 


dows  were  a  little  more  than  thirty  feet  above  the  ground. 
Under  one  was  a  flag  pavement,  extending  from  the  house 
to  the  front  gate.  Under  the  other  was  a  rectangular  coal- 
hole covered  with  an  iron  grating.  This  was  surrounded  by 
flagging  over  a  foot  in  width;  and,  connecting  it  and  the 
pavement  proper,  was  another  flag.  So  that  all  along 
the  front  of  the  house,  stone  or  iron  filled  a  space  at  no  point 
less  than  two  feet  in  width.  It  required  no  great  amount  of 
calculation  to  determine  how  slight  the  chance  of  surviving 
a  fall  from  either  of  these  windows. 

About  dawn  I  arose.  Stealthily  I  approached  the  window, 
pushed  open  the  blinds  and  looked  out — and  down.  Then  I 
closed  the  blinds  as  noiselessly  as  possible  and  crept  back  to 
bed:  I  had  not  yet  become  so  desperate  that  I  dared  to  take 
the  leap.  Scarcely  had  I  pulled  up  the  covering  when  a 
watchful  relative  entered  my  room,  drawn  thither  perhaps 
by  that  protecting  prescience  which  love  inspires.  I  thought 
her  words  revealed  a  suspicion  that  she  had  heard  me  at  the 
window,  and  speechless  as  I  was  I  had  enough  speech  to 
deceive  her.  For,  of  what  account  are  Truth  and  Love  when 
Life  itself  has  ceased  to  seem  desirable  ? 

The  dawn  soon  hid  itself  in  the  brilliancy  of  a  perfect  June 
day.  Never  had  I  seen  a  brighter  —  to  look  at;  never  a 
darker  —  to  live  through,  —  or  a  better  to  die  upon.  Its 
very  perfection  and  the  songs  of  the  robins,  which  at  that 
season  were  plentiful  in  the  neighborhood,  served  but  to 
increase  my  despair  and  make  me  the  more  willing  to  die. 
As  the  day  wore  on  my  anguish  became  more  intense,  but 
I  managed  to  mislead  those  about  me  by  uttering  a  word 
now  and  then,  and  feigning  to  read  a  newspaper,  which  to 
me,  however,  appeared  an  uninteUigible  confusion  of  type. 
My  brain  was  in  a  ferment.  It  felt  as  if  pricked  by  a  million 
needles  at  white  heat.      My  whole  body  felt  as  though  it 


l8  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

would  be  torn  apart  by  the  terrific  nervous  strain  under 
which  I  labored. 

Shortly  after  noon,  dinner  having  been  served,  my  mother 
entered  the  room  and  asked  me  if  she  should  bring  me  some 
dessert.  I  assented.  It  was  not  that  I  cared  for  the  dessert; 
I  had  no  appetite.  I  wished  to  get  her  out  of  the  room,  for 
I  believed  myself  to  be  on  the  verge  of  another  attack.  She 
left  at  once.  I  knew  that  in  two  or  three  minutes  she  would 
return.  The  crisis  seemed  at  hand.  It  was  now  or  never 
for  liberation.  She  had  probably  descended  one  of  three 
flights  of  stairs  when,  with  the  mad  desire  to  dash  my  brains 
out  on  the  pavement  below,  I  rushed  to  that  window  which 
was  directly  over  the  flag  walk.  Providence  must  have 
guided  my  movements,  for  in  some  otherwise  unaccountable 
way,  on  the  very  point  of  hurling  myself  out  bodily,  I  chose 
to  drop  feet  foremost  instead.  With  my  fingers  I  clung  for  a 
moment  to  the  sill.  Then  I  let  go.  In  falling  my  body 
turned  so  as  to  bring  my  right  side  toward  the  building.  I 
struck  the  ground  a  little  more  than  two  feet  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  house,  and  at  least  three  to  the  left  of  the  point 
from  which  I  started.  Missing  the  stone  pavement  by  not 
more  than  three  or  four  inches,  I  struck  on  compara- 
tively soft  earth.  My  position  must  have  been  almost 
upright,  for  both  heels  struck  the  ground  squarely.  The 
concussion  slightly  crushed  one  heel  bone  and  broke  most 
of  the  small  bones  in  the  arch  of  each  foot,  but  there 
was  no  mutilation  of  the  flesh.  As  my  feet  struck  the  ground 
my  right  hand  struck  hard  against  the  front  of  the  house, 
and  it  is  probable  that  these  three  points  of  contact  divided 
the  force  of  the  shock  and  prevented  my  back  from  being 
broken.  As  it  was,  it  narrowly  escaped  a  fracture  and,  for 
several  weeks  afterward,  it  felt  as  if  powdered  glass  had 
been  substituted  for  cartilage  between  the  vertebrae. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  19 

I  did  not  lose  consciousness  even  for  a  second,  and  the 
demoniacal  dread,  which  had  possessed  me  from  June, 
1894,  until  this  fall  to  earth  just  six  years  later,  was  dispelled 
the  instant  I  struck  the  ground.  At  no  time  since  that  in- 
stant have  I  experienced  one  of  my  imaginary  attacks;  nor 
has  my  mind  even  for  a  moment  entertained  such  an  idea. 
The  little  demon  which  had  tortured  me  relentlessly  for  six 
years  evidently  lacked  the  stamina  which  I  must  have  had  to 
survive  the  shock  of  my  suddenly  arrested  flight  through 
space.  That  the  very  delusion  which  drove  me  to  a  death- 
loving  desperation  should  so  suddenly  vanish,  seems  to  me 
to  indicate  that  many  a  suicide  might  be  averted  if  the  per- 
son contemplating  it  could  find  the  proper  assistance  when 
such  a  crisis  impends. 


IV 

Though  I  was  unquestionably  insane  before  the  physical 
injuries  which  I  sustained,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that 
without  the  injuries  my  insanity  would  have  manifested  itself 
in  a  mild  and  easily  curable  form.  As  it  was,  the  mere 
shock  to  my  spine  affected  my  brain  and  complicated  my 
case.  Within  a  few  hours  after  my  fall  my  brain  was  in  a 
seriously  disordered  condition. 

I  have  my  own  perhaps  fanciful  theory  regarding  the  effect 
of  that  concussion.  In  physics,  the  fact  that  a  change  of 
molecular  structure  in  a  magnetized  bar  of  soft  iron  will 
change  the  character  of  its  magnetism  is  proved  by  a  very 
simple  and  interesting  experiment.  If  a  magnet  in  the  shape 
of  a  straight  bar  be  held  vertically,  the  top  of  the  magnet  being 
positive  and  the  bottom  negative,  the  positive  end  may  be 
immediately  changed  to  negative,  and  the  negative  to 
positive,  if  either  be  struck  a  sharp  blow  with  a  hammer. 
The  character  of  the  magnetism  may  be  changed  as  fre- 
quently as  the  experimenter  wishes  by  thus  striking  the  two 
ends  alternately.  Now  if  the  naturally  positive  end  be  left 
negatively  magnetized,  and  the  magnet  then  be  laid  aside, 
it  will  gradually  lose  its  negative  quality  and  eventually  be- 
come positive  as  at  first.  This  return  of  the  iron  to  its 
normal  character  is  due  to  an  irresistible  tendency  of  the 
molecules  to  re-adjust  themselves  and  take  their  original 
relative  positions. 

The  human  body,  like  every  physical  object,  including  the 
earth,  is,  potentially  at  least,  a  magnet.     My  body  as  it  hung 


A  MIND   THAT   FOUND   ITSELF  21 

from  the  window-sill  was  feebly  positive,  as  it  were,  at  the 
top.  If  the  molecular  structure  of  a  bar  of  iron  can  be 
changed  by  a  slight  blow,  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  the  molecular  structure  of  the  human  body,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  nervous  system,  may  be  completely  altered  by 
such  a  blow  as  my  body  received  when  my  feet  struck  the 
ground.  As  in  the  case  of  a  magnet  left  in  a  state  of  mag- 
netism other  than  its  normal,  the  molecular  structure  of  my 
body  was  left  to  re-adjust  itself  by  the  slow  process  of  time. 
And,  after  a  period  of  over  three  years,  it  finally  did  become 
sufficiently  positive  at  the  top  to  enter  again  the  magnetic 
field  of  sane,  human  endeavor. 


It  was  squarely  in  front  of  the  dining-room  window  that 
I  feU,  and  those  at  dinner  were  more  startled  than  I.  It 
took  them  a  second  or  two  to  realize  what  had  happened. 
Then  my  younger  brother  rushed  out,  and  with  other  assist- 
ance carried  me  into  the  house.  Naturally  that  dinner  was 
permanently  interrupted.  A  mattress  was  placed  on  the 
floor  of  the  dining-room  and  I  on  that,  suffering  intensely. 
I  said  little,  but  what  I  said  was  significant.  "I  thought 
I  had  epilepsy!"  was  my  first  remark;  and  several 
times  I  said,  "I  wish  it  was  over!"  For  I  believed  that  my 
death  was  only  a  question  of  hours.  To  the  doctors,  who 
soon  arrived,  I  said,  "My  back  is  broken!"  — raising  my- 
self slightly,  however,  as  I  said  so. 

An  ambulance  soon  arrived,  in  which  I  was  placed.  Be- 
cause of  the  nature  of  my  injuries  it  was  necessary  that  the 
ambulance  proceed  slowly.  The  trip  of  a  mile  and  a  half 
seemed  interminable,  but  in  due  time  I  arrived  at  Grace 
Hospital  and  was  placed  in  a  room  which  soon  became  a 
chamber  of  torture.     It  was  on  the  second  floor;  and  the 


22  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

first  object  to  engage  my  attention  and  stir  my  imagination 
was  a  man  who  appeared  outside  my  window  and  placed  in 
position  several  heavy  iron  bars.  These  were,  of  course, 
for  my  protection,  but  at  that  time  no  such  idea  occurred  to 
me.  My  mind  was  in  a  delusional  state,  ready  and  eager 
to  adopt  any  external  stimulus  as  a  pretext  for  its  wild  in- 
ventions, and  that  barred  window  started  a  terrible  train  of 
delusions  which  persisted  for  seven  hundred  and  ninety- eight 
days.  During  that  period  my  mind  imprisoned  both  mind 
and  body  in  a  dungeon  than  which  none  was  ever  more  secure. 
Klnowing  that  those  who  attempt  suicide  are  usually  placed 
under  arrest,  I  believed  myself  under  legal  restraint.  I  im- 
agined that  at  any  moment  I  might  be  taken  to  court  to  face 
some  charge  lodged  against  me  by  the  local  police.  Every 
act  of  those  about  me  seemed  to  be  a  part  of  what,  in  police 
parlance,  is  commonly  called,  the  "Third  Degree."  The 
hot  poultices  placed  upon  my  feet  and  ankles  threw  me  into 
a  profuse  perspiration,  and  my  very  active  association  of 
mad  ideas  convinced  me  that  I  was  being  "sweated"  — 
another  police  term  which  I  had  often  seen  in  the  newspapers, 
I  inferred  that  this  third-degree  sweating  process  was  being 
inflicted  in  order  to  extort  some  kind  of  a  confession,  though 
what  my  captors  wished  me  to  confess  I  could  not  for  my  life 
imagine.  As  I  was  really  in  a  state  of  delirium,  with  high 
fever,  I  had  an  insatiable  thirst.  The  only  liquids  given  me 
were  hot  saline  solutions.  Though  there  was  good  reason 
for  administering  these,  I  believed  they  were  designed  for  no 
other  purpose  than  to  increase  my  sufferings,  as  a  part  of  the 
same  inquisitorial  process.  But  had  a  confession  been  due 
I  could  hardly  have  made  it,  for  that  part  of  my  brain  which 
controls  the  power  of  speech  was  seriously  affected,  and  was 
soon  to  be  further  disabled  by  my  ungovernable  thoughts. 
Only  an  occasional  word  did  I  utter. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


23 


Certain  hallucinations  of  hearing,  or  "false  voices,"  added 
to  my  torture.  Within  my  range  of  hearing,  but  beyond 
the  reach  of  my  understanding,  there  was  a  hellish  vocal  hum. 
Now  and  then  I  would  recognize  the  subdued  voice  of  a 
former  friend ;  now  and  then  I  would  hear  the  voices  of  some 
who  I  believed  were  not  friends.  All  these  referred  to  me 
and  uttered  what  I  could  not  clearly  distinguish,  but  knew 
must  be  imprecations.  Ghostly  rappings  on  the  walls  and 
ceiling  of  my  room  punctuated  unintelligible  mumblings  of 
invisible  persecutors.     Those  were  long  nights. 

I  remember  distinctly  my  delusion  of  the  following  day  — 
Sunday.  I  seemed  to  be  no  longer  in  the  hospital.  In  some 
mysterious  way  I  had  been  spirited  aboard  a  huge  ocean 
steamship.  I  first  discovered  this  when  the  ship  was  in  mid- 
ocean.  The  day  was  clear,  the  sea  apparently  calm,  but 
for  all  that,  the  ship  was  slowly  sinking.  And  it  was  I,  of 
course,  who  had  brought  on  what  must  turn  out  fatally  for 
all,  unless  the  coast  of  Europe  could  be  reached  before  the 
water  in  the  hold  should  extinguish  the  fires.  How  had  this 
peril  overtaken  us?  Simply  enough:  During  the  night  I 
had  in  some  way  —  a  way  still  unknown  to  me  —  opened  a 
port-hole  below  the  water-line;  and  those  in  charge  of  the 
vessel  seemed  powerless  to  close  it.  Every  now  and 
then  I  could  hear  parts  of  the  vessel  give  way  under  the 
strain.  I  could  hear  the  air  hiss  and  whistle  spitefully  under 
the  resistless  impact  of  the  invading  waters;  I  could  hear  the 
crashing  of  timbers  as  partitions  were  wrecked;  and  as 
the  water  rushed  in  at  one  place  I  could  see,  at  another, 
scores  of  helpless  passengers  swept  overboard  into  the  sea  — 
my  unintended  victims.  I  believed  that  I  too  might  at  any 
moment  be  swept  away.  That  I  was  not  thrown  into  the 
sea  by  vengeful  fellow-passengers  was,  I  thought,  due  to 
their  desire  to  keep  me  alive  until,  if  possible,  land  should 


24  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

be  reached,  when  a  more  painful  death  could  be  inflicted 
upon  me. 

While  aboard  my  phantom-ship  I  managed  in  some  way 
to  establish  an  electric  railway  system;  and  the  trolley  cars 
which  passed  the  hospital  were  soon  running  along 
the  deck  of  my  ocean-liner,  carrying  passengers  from  the 
places  of  peril  in  the  ship's  hold  to  what  seemed  places  of 
comparative  safety  at  the  bow.  Every  time  I  heard  a  car 
pass  the  hospital  one  of  mine  went  clanging  along  the  ship's 
deck. 

This  feverish  day-dream  is  less  remarkable  than  the  ex- 
ternal stimuli  which  excited  it.  As  I  have  since  ascertained 
there  was,  just  outside  my  room,  an  elevator  and  near  it  a 
speaking  tube.  Whenever  the  speaking-tube  was  used  from 
another  part  of  the  building,  the  summoning  whistle  con- 
veyed to  my  mind  the  idea  of  the  exhaustion  of  air  in  a  ship- 
compartment,  and  the  opening  and  shutting  of  the  elevator 
door  completed  the  illusion  of  a  ship  fast  going  to  pieces. 
But  the  ship  my  mind  was  on  never  reached  any  shore,  nor 
did  she  sink.  Like  a  mirage  she  vanished,  and  again  I  found 
myself  safe  in  my  bed  at  the  hospital.  "Safe,"  did  I  say? 
Scarcely  that,  —  for  deliverance  from  one  impending  disaster 
simply  meant  immediate  precipitation  into  another. 

My  delirium  gradually  subsided,  and  four  or  five  days 
after  the  23d  the  doctors  were  able  to  set  my  broken  bones. 
To  my  gradually  increasing  insanity  the  operation  suggested 
new  delusions.  Shortly  before  the  adjustment  of  the  plaster 
casts,  my  legs,  for  obvious  reasons,  were  shaved  from  shin 
to  calf.  This  unusual  tonsorial  operation  I  read  for  a  sign 
of  degradation  —  associating  it  with  what  I  had  heard  of  the 
treatment  of  murderers  and  with  similar  customs  in  more 
barbarous  lands.  It  was  about  this  time  also  that  strips  of 
court-plaster,  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  were  placed  on  my  brow, 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  25 

which  had  been  slightly  scratched  in  my  fall,  and  this  I  read 
for  a  brand  of  infamy. 

Had  my  health  been  good  I  should  at  this  time  have 
been  participating  in  the  Triennial  of  my  class  at  Yale.  In- 
deed, I  was  a  member  of  the  Triennial  Committee  and 
though,  when  I  left  New  York  on  June  15th,  I  had  been 
feeling  terribly  ill,  I  had  then  hoped  to  brace  myself  for  the 
anticipated  pleasures  of  the  reunion.  The  class  reunions 
were  held  on  Tuesday,  June  26th  —  three  days  after  my 
collapse.  Those  familiar  with  Yale  customs  know  that 
the  Harvard  baseball  game  is  one  of  the  chief  events  of 
the  commencement  season.  Headed  by  brass  bands,  all  the 
classes  whose  reunions  fall  in  the  same  year,  march  to  the 
Yale  Athletic  Field  to  see  the  game  and  renew  their  youth 
—  using  up  as  much  vigor  in  one  delirious  day  as  would  in- 
sure a  ripe  old  age  if  less  prodigally  expended.  These 
classes  with  their  bands  and  cheering,  accompanied  by  thou- 
sands of  other  vociferating  enthusiasts,  march  through  West 
Chapel  Street  —  the  most  direct  route  from  the  Campus  to 
the  Field.  It  is  upon  this  line  of  march  that  Grace  Hospital 
is  situated,  and  I  knew  that  on  the  day  of  the  game  the  Yale 
thousands  would  pass  the  scene  of  my  incarceration. 

I  have  endured  so  many  days  of  the  most  exquisite  tor- 
ture that  I  hesitate  to  distinguish  among  them  by  degrees; 
each  deserves  its  own  unique  place,  even  as  a  Saint's  Day 
on  the  calendar  of  an  olden  Spanish  inquisitor.  But,  if  the 
palm  is  to  be  awarded  to  any,  June  26th,  1900,  perhaps  has 
the  first  claim. 

My  state  of  mind  at  this  time  might  be  pictured  thus: 
The  criminal  charge  of  attempted  suicide  stood  against  me 
on  June  23d.  By  the  26th  many  other  and  worse  charges 
had  accumulated.  The  public  believed  me  the  most  des- 
picable member  of  my  race.     The  papers  were  filled  with 


26  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

accounts  of  my  misdeeds.  The  thousands  of  collegians  gath- 
ered in  the  city,  many  of  whom  I  knew  personally,  loathed 
the  very  thought  that  a  Yale  man  should  so  disgrace  his 
Alma  Mater.  And  when  they  approached  the  hospital  on 
their  way  to  the  Athletic  Field,  I  concluded  that  it  was  their 
intention  to  take  me  from  my  bed,  drag  me  to  the  lawn,  and 
there  tear  me  limb  from  limb.  Few  incidents  during  my 
unhappiest  years  are  more  vividly  or  circumstantially 
impressed  upon  my  memory.  The  fear,  to  be  sure,  was 
absurd,  but  in  the  lurid  lexicon  of  Unreason  there  is  no  such 
word  as  "absurd."  The  college  cries  which  filled  the  air 
that  afternoon  struck  more  terror  to  my  heart  than  all 
the  Yale  cheers  of  history  have  struck  to  the  hearts  of  van- 
quished rivals  on  field  or  water. 


V 

Naturally  I  was  suspicious  of  all  about  me,  and  became 
more  so  each  day.  But  not  until  about  a  month  after  my 
hurt  did  I  refuse  to  recognize  my  relatives.  While  I  was  at 
Grace  Hospital  my  father  and  eldest  brother  called  almost 
every  day  to  see  me,  and,  though  I  said  little,  I  still  accepted 
them  in  their  proper  characters.  I  remember  well  a  conver- 
sation one  morning  with  my  father.  The  words  I  uttered 
were  few  but  full  of  meaning.  Shortly  before  this  time  my 
death  had  been  momentarily  expected.  I  still  believed  that 
I  was  surely  about  to  die  as  a  result  of  my  injuries,  and  I 
wished  in  some  way  to  let  my  father  know  that,  despite  my 
apparently  ignominious  end,  I  appreciated  all  that  he  had 
done  for  me  during  my  life.  Few  men,  I  believe,  ever  had 
a  more  painful  time  in  expressing  their  feelings  than  I  had  on 
that  occasion.  I  had  but  little  control  over  my  mind,  and 
my  power  of  speech  was  impaired.  My  father  sat  beside 
my  bed.  Looking  up  at  him,  I  said,  "You  have  been  a 
good  father  to  me." 

"I  have  always  tried  to  be,"  was  his  characteristic  reply. 

After  the  broken  bones  had  been  set,  and  the  first  effects 
of  the  severe  shock  I  had  sustained  had  worn  off,  I  began  to 
gain  strength.  About  the  third  week  I  was  able  to  sit  up 
and  was  occasionally  taken  out  of  doors.  But  each  day,  and 
especially  during  the  hours  of  the  night,  my  delusions  in- 
creased in  force  and  variety.  The  world  was  fast  becoming 
to  me  a  stage  on  which  every  human  being  within  the  range 
of  my  senses  seemed  to  be  playing  a  part,  and  that  a  part 

27 


28  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

which  would  lead  not  only  to  my  destruction  (for  which  I 
cared  little),  but  also  to  the  ruin  of  all  with  whom  I  had  ever 
come  in  contact.  In  the  month  of  July  several  thunder- 
storms occurred.  To  me  the  thunder  was  "stage"  thunder, 
the  lightning,  man-made,  and  the  accompanying  rain  due 
to  some  clever  contrivance  of  my  persecutors.  There  was 
a  chapel  connected  with  the  hospital  —  or  at  least  a  room 
where  religious  services  were  held  every  Sunday.  To  me 
the  hymns  were  funeral  dirges;  and  the  mumbled  prayers, 
faintly  audible,  were  in  behalf  of  every  sufferer  in  the  world 
but  one. 


It  was  my  eldest  brother  who  looked  after  my  care  and 
interests  during  my  entire  illness.  Toward  the  end  of  July, 
he  informed  me  that  I  was  to  be  taken  home  again. 
I  must  have  given  him  an  incredulous  look,  for  he 
said,  "Don't  you  think  we  can  take  you  home?  Well, 
we  can  and  will."  Believing  myself  in  the  hands  of  the 
police  I  did  not  see  how  that  was  possible.  Nor  did  I  have 
any  desire  to  return.  That  a  man  who  had  disgraced  his 
family  should  again  enter  his  old  home,  and  expect  his  rel- 
atives to  treat  him  as  though  nothing  were  changed,  was  a 
thought  against  which  my  whole  nature  rebelled;  and,  when 
the  day  came  for  my  return,  I  fought  my  brother  and  the 
doctor  feebly  as  they  lifted  me  from  the  bed.  But,  realizing 
the  uselessness  of  resistance,  I  soon  submitted,  was  placed 
in  a  carriage,  and  driven  to  the  house  I  had  left  a  month 
earlier. 

For  a  few  hours  my  mind  was  easier  than  it  had  been. 
But  my  new-found  ease  was  soon  dispelled  by  the  appear- 
ance of  a  nurse  —  one  of  several  who  had  attended  me  at  the 
hospital.     Though  at  home  and  surrounded  by  relatives  I 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  29 

jumped  at  the  conclusion  that  I  was  still  under  police  sur- 
veillance. At  my  request  my  brother  had  promised  not  to 
engage  any  nurse  who  had  been  in  attendance  at  the  hos- 
pital. The  difficulty  of  procuring  any  other  led  him  to  dis- 
regard my  request,  which  at  the  time  he  held  simply  as  a 
whim.  But  he  did  not  disregard  it  entirely,  for  the  nurse 
selected  had  merely  acted  as  a  substitute  on  one  occasion,  and 
then  only  for  about  an  hour.  That  was  long  enough,  though, 
for  my  memory  to  become  acquainted  with  her  image.  My 
brother's  mistake  was  grave,  for  the  unintentional  breaking 
of  that  promise  broke  the  only  remaining  thread  that  bound 
me  to  the  world.  And  it  is  now  clear  to  my  judgment  that 
the  most  trifling  promise,  direct  or  implied,  made  under  such 
circumstances,  should,  if  possible,  be  carried  out  to  the  letter. 
This  question  I  have  since  discussed  with  alienists,  all  of 
whom  agree  with  me.  Suspicion  cannot  be  overcome  by 
being  fed  upon  untruth  itself,  and  suspicion  is  the  condi- 
tion of  most  unbalanced  minds.  I  am  convinced  that  the 
unhappiness  of  many  such  would  be  greatly  decreased  if, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  they  received  at  the  hands  of  sane 
persons  the  treatment  accorded  sane  persons.  It  should 
never  be  taken  for  granted  that  a  perverted  mind  cannot 
detect  a  perverted  moral  act.  To  gain  the  shattered  confi- 
dence of  suspicious  insane  patients,  their  treatment  should 
be  consistently  honest  and  kind.  But  let  me  in  all  justice 
and  all  gratitude  emphasize  the  fact  that  my  brother  was 
not  to  blame  for  his  error  of  judgment;  and  without  abating 
a  jot  of  my  conviction  that  such  little  subterfuges  are  injuri- 
ous to  the  patient  and  should  be  scrupulously  avoided  — 
most  of  all  by  his  relatives,  and  by  the  doctors  and  nurses 
in  charge  of  him  —  I  must  add  that,  of  course,  had  it  not 
been  this  incident,  almost  any  other  would  as  surely  have 
precipitated  the  plunge  to  chaos  of  my  swaying  reason. 


30  A  MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF 

Finding  myself  still  under  surveillance,  I  soon  jumped  to 
a  second  conclusion,  namely:  that  this  was  no  brother  of 
mine  at  all.  He  instantly  appeared  in  the  light  of  a  sinister 
double,  acting  as  a  detective.  After  that  I  refused  abso- 
lutely to  speak  to  him  again,  and  this  repudiation  I  extended 
to  all  other  relatives,  friends,  and  acquaintances.  If  the  man 
I  had  accepted  as  my  brother  was  spurious,  so  were  aU  the 
rest  —  such  was  my  deduction.  For  more  than  two  years  I 
was  without  relatives  or  friends,  in  fact,  a  man  without  a 
world,  except  that  one  created  by  my  own  mind  from  the 
chaos  that  reigned  within  it.  Having  lost  aU  touch,  even  with 
my  mother  and  father  whom  I  had  seen,  naturally  God, 
whom  I  had  not  seen,  ceased  to  exist  for  me.  Thus  I  was 
denied  the  comfort  which  comes  to  so  many  in  distress. 

While  I  was  at  Grace  Hospital  it  was  my  sense  of  hearing 
which  was  the  most  disturbed.  Soon  after  I  was  placed  in 
my  room  at  home  all  of  my  senses  became  perverted.  I 
still  heard  the  "false  voices" — which  were  doubly  false, 
for  Truth  no  longer  existed.  The  tricks  played  upon  me  by 
my  perverted  senses  of  taste,  touch,  smell,  and  sight  were 
the  source  of  great  mental  anguish.  None  of  my  food  had 
its  usual  flavor.  This  soon  led  to  that  common  delusion  that 
some  of  it  contained  poison  —  not  deadly  poison,  for  I  knew 
that  my  enemies  hated  me  too  much  to  allow  me  the  boon 
of  death,  but  poison  sufficient  to  aggravate  my  discomfort. 
At  breakfast  I  had  cantaloupe,  liberally  sprinkled  with  salt. 
The  salt  seemed  to  pucker  my  mouth,  and  I  believed  it  to  be 
powdered  alum.  Usually,  with  my  supper,  sliced  peaches 
were  served.  Though  there  was  sugar  on  the  peaches,  salt 
would  have  done  as  well.  Salt,  sugar,  and  powdered  alum 
had  become  the  same  to  me. 

Familiar  materials  had  acquired  a  different  "feel."  In  the 
dark,  the  bed  sheets  at  times  seemed  like  silk.    As  I  had  not 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  31 

been  born  with  a  golden  spoon  in  my  mouth,  or  other  acces- 
sories of  a  useless  luxury,  I  believed  the  detectives  had  pro- 
vided these  silken  sheets  for  some  hostile  purpose  of  their 
own.  What  that  purpose  was  I  could  not  divine,  and  my 
very  inability  to  arrive  at  a  satisfactory  conclusion  stimu- 
lated my  brain  to  the  assembling  of  disturbing  thoughts  in 
an  almost  endless  train.  Thus  does  a  perverted  sense 
grow  by  what  it  feeds  on. 

Imaginary  breezes  struck  my  face,  gentle,  but  not  welcome, 
most  of  them  from  parts  of  the  room  where  currents  of  air 
could  not  possibly  originate.  They  seemed  to  come  from 
cracks  in  the  walls  and  ceiling  and  annoyed  me  exceedingly. 
I  thought  them  in  some  way  related  to  that  Chinese  method 
of  torture  by  which  water  is  allowed  to  strike  the  victim's 
forehead,  a  drop  at  a  time,  until  death  releases  him. 

The  old  doctrine  of  brimstone,  Hell-fire,  and  damnation 
is  not  so  difficult  for  me  to  believe  as  it  is  for  that  type  of 
saint  who  would  get  to  Glory  easily,  or,  at  least,  substitute 
for  Heaven  a  sweet  and  unmerited  oblivion.  For  does  not 
the  Devil  lurk  in  one's  nasal  passages?  Stifling  fumes  of 
sulphur  are  as  the  crisp  air  of  wooded  glens  compared  to 
the  odor  of  burning  human  flesh  and  other  pestilential 
fumes  which  seemed  to  assail  me. 

My  sense  of  sight  was  subjected  to  many  weird  and  un- 
canny effects.  Phantasmagoric  visions  made  their  visitations 
throughout  the  night,  for  a  time  with  such  regularity  that  I 
used  to  await  their  coming  with  a  certain  restrained  curiosity. 
Although  I  was  not  entirely  unaware  that  something  was 
ailing  with  my  mind,  I  did  not  accept  these  visions,  or  any 
other  abnormal  effects  of  sense,  as  symptoms  of  insanity. 
All  these  horrors  I  took  for  the  work  of  detectives,  who  sat 
up  nights  racking  their  brains  in  order  to  rack  and  utterly 
wreck  my  own  with  a  cruel  and  unfair  "Third  Degree." 


32  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

Handwriting  on  the  wall  has  ever  struck  terror  to  the 
hearts  of  sane  men.  I  remember  as  one  of  my  most  unpleas- 
ant experiences  that  I  began  to  see  handwriting  on  the  sheets 
of  my  bed  staring  me  in  the  face,  and  not  me  alone,  but 
also  the  spurious  relatives  who  often  stood  or  sat  near  me. 
On  each  fresh  sheet  placed  over  me  I  would  soon  begin  to 
see  words,  sentences,  and  signatures,  all  in  my  own  hand- 
writing. Yet  I  could  not  decipher  any  of  the  words,  and 
this  fact  dismayed  me,  for  I  firmly  believed  that  those  who 
stood  about  could  read  them  all  and  found  them  to  be 
incriminating  evidence. 

I  imagined  that  these  vision-like  effects,  with  few  excep- 
tions, were  produced  by  a  magic-lantern,  controlled  by 
some  of  my  myriad  persecutors.  The  lantern  was  rather  a 
cinematographic  contrivance.  Moving  pictures,  often  bril- 
liantly colored,  were  thrown  on  the  ceiling  of  my  room  and 
sometimes  on  the  sheets  of  my  bed.  Human  bodies,  dis- 
membered and  gory,  were  one  of  the  most  common  of  these. 
All  this  may  have  been  due  to  the  fact  that,  as  a  boy,  I  had 
fed  my  imagination  on  the  sensational  news  of  the  day  as 
presented  in  the  public  press.  These  papers  I  had  been 
accustomed  to  read  thoroughly,  reading  first  the  worst  news 
and  ending  with  the  best  —  if  I  had  time.  Despite  the  heavy 
penalty  which  I  now  paid  for  thus  loading  my  mind,  I  be- 
lieve this  unwise  indulgence  gave  a  breadth  and  variety  to 
my  peculiar  psychological  experience  which  it  otherwise 
would  have  lacked.  For  with  an  insane  ingenuity  I  managed 
to  connect  myself  with  almost  every  crime  of  importance  of 
which  I  had  ever  read. 

Dismembered  human  bodies  were  not  alone  my  bed-fel- 
lows at  this  time.  I  remember  one  vision  of  vivid  beauty. 
Swarms  of  butterflies  and  large  and  gorgeous  moths  appeared 
on  the  sheets.     That  sight  I  really  enjoyed,  knowing  that 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  33 

the  pretty  creatures  were  not  alive;  and  I  wished  that  the 
usually  unkind  operator  would  continue  to  minister  to  my 
aesthetic  taste  by  feeding  it  on  colors  so  rich  and  so  faultlessly 
combined.  Another  pleasing  vision  appeared  about  twi- 
light several  days  in  succession.  I  can  trace  it  directly 
to  impressions  gained  in  early  childhood.  The  quaint 
pictures  by  Kate  Greenaway  —  little  children  in  attrac- 
tive dress,  playing  in  old-fashioned  gardens  —  would  float 
through  space  just  outside  my  windows.  The  pictures  were 
always  accompanied  by  the  gleeful  shouts  of  real  children 
in  the  neighborhood,  who,  before  being  sent  to  bed  by 
watchful  parents,  devoted  the  last  hour  of  the  day  to  play. 
It  was  their  shouts  that  stirred  my  memories  of  childhood 
and  brought  forth  these  pictures. 

In  my  chamber  of  intermittent  horrors  and  momentary 
delights,  uncanny  occurrences  were  frequent.  I  believed 
there  was  some  one  who  at  faU  of  night  secreted  himself 
under  my  bed.  That  in  itself  was  not  peculiar,  as  sane  per- 
sons, at  one  time  or  another,  are  troubled  by  that  same 
notion.  But  my  bed-fellow  —  under  the  bed  —  was  a 
detective;  and  he  spent  most  of  his  time  during  the  night 
pressing  pieces  of  ice  against  my  injured  heels,  to  pre- 
cipitate,   as  I  thought,  my  overdue  confession. 

The  piece  of  ice  in  the  pitcher  of  water  which  stood  usu- 
ally on  the  table  clinked  against  the  pitcher's  side  as  its 
center  of  gravity  shifted  through  melting.  It  was  many 
days  before  I  reasoned  out  the  cause  of  this  sound;  and  until 
I  did  I  supposed  it  to  be  produced  by  some  mechanical 
device  resorted  to  by  the  detectives  for  a  purpose.  Thus  it 
is  that  the  most  trifling  occurrence  assumes  vast  significance 
to  an  unsound  mind  afflicted  with  certain  types  of  delusion. 


VI 

After  remaining  at  home  for  about  a  month,  during  which 
time  I  showed  no  improvement  mentally,  though  I  did  gain 
physically,  I  was  taken  to  a  private  sanatorium.  My  des- 
tination was  frankly  disclosed  to  me.  But  my  habit  of  dis- 
belief had  now  become  confirmed,  and  I  thought  myself  on 
the  way  to  a  trial  in  New  York  City,  for  some  one  of  the 
many  crimes  with  which  I  stood  charged. 

My  emotions  on  leaving  New  Haven  were,  I  imagine, 
much  the  same  as  those  of  a  condemned  and  penitent  crim- 
inal who  looks  upon  the  world  for  the  last  time.  The  day 
was  hot,  and,  as  we  drove  to  the  railway  station,  the  blinds 
on  most  of  the  houses  in  the  streets  through  which  we  passed 
were  seen  to  be  closed.  The  reason  for  this  was  not  then 
apparent  to  me.  I  thought  I  saw  an  unbroken  line  of  de- 
serted houses,  and  I  imagined  that  their  desertion  had  been 
deliberately  planned  as  a  sign  of  displeasure  on  the  part  of 
their  former  occupants.  As  citizens  of  New  Haven  I  sup- 
posed them  bitterly  ashamed  of  such  a  despicable  inhabitant 
as  myself.  Because  of  the  early  hour,  the  streets  were 
practically  deserted.  This  fact  too  I  interpreted  to  my  own 
disadvantage ;  and,  as  the  carriage  crossed  the  main  business 
thoroughfare,  I  took  what  I  believed  to  be  my  last  look  at 
that  portion  of  my  native  city. 

From  the  carriage  I  was  carried  to  the  train  and  placed 
in  the  smoking-car  in  the  last  seat  on  the  right-hand  side. 
The  back  of  the  seat  next  in  front  was  reversed  so  that  my 
legs  might  be  placed  in  a  comfortable  position,  and  one  of 

34 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  35 

the  boards  used  by  card-playing  travelers  was  placed  beneath 
them  as  a  support.  With  a  consistent  degree  of  suspicion 
I  paid  particular  attention  to  a  blue  mark  on  the  face  of  the 
railroad  ticket  held  by  my  custodian.  I  took  it  to  be  a  means 
of  identification  for  use  in  court,  but  wherefore,  I  knew  not. 
That  one's  memory  may  perform  its  function  in  the  grip 
of  Unreason  itself  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  my  memory 
retains  an  impression,  and  an  accurate  one,  of  virtually 
everything  that  befell  me,  except  when  under  the  influence 
of  an  anaesthetic  or  in  the  unconscious  hours  of  undisturbed 
sleep.  Important  events,  trifling  conversations,  and  more 
trifling  thoughts  of  my  own,  are  now  recalled  with  ease 
and  accuracy;  whereas,  prior  to  my  illness  and  up  to  j 
August  30th,  igo2,  when  I  again  got  in  touch  with  my 
own  world,  mine  was  an  ordinary  memory  when  it  was 
not  noticeably  poor.  At  school  and  in  college  I  stood 
lowest  in  those  studies  in  which  success  depended  largely 
upon  this  faculty.  Psychiatrists  inform  me  that  it  is  not 
unusual  for  patients  afiiicted  as  I  was  to  retain  accurate 
impressions  of  their  experiences  while  ill.  To  laymen  this 
may  seem  almost  miraculous,  yet  it  is  not  so;  nor  is  it  even  I 
remarkable.  Assuming  that  an  insane  person's  memory  is  I 
capable  of  recording  impressions  at  all,  remembrance,  for  \ 
one  in  the  torturing  grip  of  delusions  of  persecution,  should 
be  doubly  easy.  This  deduction  is  in  accord  with  the  ac-  , 
cepted  psychological  law :  that  the  retention  of  an  impression 
in  the  memory  depends  largely  upon  the  intensity  of  the  im- 
pression itself,  and  the  frequency  of  its  repetition.  Fearing 
to  speak  lest  I  should  incriminate  myself  and  others,  gave 
to  my  impressions  the  requisite  intensity,  and  the  daily  re- 
currence of  the  same  general  line  of  thought  served  to  fix  all 
impressions  in  my  then  supersensitive  memory. 


36  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

Shortly  before  seven  in  the  morning,  en  route  to  the  sana- 
torium, the  train  passed  through  a  manufacturing  center. 
Many  workmen  were  lounging  in  front  of  a  factory,  most  of 
them  reading  newspapers.  I  believed  these  papers  con- 
tained an  account  of  me  and  my  crimes,  and  I  thought  every- 
one along  the  route  knew  who  I  was  and  what  I  was,  and 
that  I  was  on  that  particular  train.  Few  seemed  to  pay  any 
attention  to  me,  yet  this  very  fact  looked  to  be  a  part  of 
some  well  laid  plan  of  the  detectives. 

The  sanatorium  for  which  I  was  destined  was  situated  in 
the  country,  and  when  we  reached  a  certain  station  I  was 
carried  from  the  train  to  a  carriage  and  driven  thither.  Just 
as  we  alighted  from  the  train  I  caught  sight  of  a  former  col- 
lege acquaintance,  whose  appearance  I  thought  was  designed 
to  let  me  know  that  Yale,  which  I  believed  I  had  disgraced, 
was  one  of  the  powers  behind  my  throne  of  torture. 

Soon  after  I  reached  my  room  in  the  sanatorium,  the 
supervisor  entered.  Drawing  a  table  close  to  the  bed  he 
placed  upon  it  a  slip  of  paper  which  he  asked  me  to  sign.  I 
looked  upon  this  as  a  trick  of  the  detectives  to  get  a 
specimen  of  my  handwriting.  I  now  know  that  the  signing 
of  the  slip  is  a  legal  requirement,  with  which  every  patient  is 
supposed  to  comply  upon  entering  such  an  institution  — 
private  in  character  —  unless  he  has  been  committed  by 
some  court.  The  exact  wording  of  this  "  voluntary  commit- 
ment" I  do  not  now  recall;  but,  in  substance,  it  was  an 
agreement  to  abide  by  the  rules  of  the  institution  —  what- 
ever they  were  —  and  to  submit  to  such  restraint  as  might 
be  deemed  necessary.  Had  I  not  felt  the  weight  of  the 
world  on  my  shoulders,  I  believe  my  sense  of  humor  would 
have  caused  me  to  laugh  outright.  For  the  signing  of  such 
an  agreement  by  one  so  situated  was,  even  to  my  mind,  a 
farce.    After  much  coaxing  I  was  induced  to  go  so  far  as  to 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  37 

take  the  pen  in  my  hand.  There  I  hesitated.  The  super- 
visor apparently  thought  I  might  write  with  more  ease  if  the 
paper  were  placed  on  a  book.  And  so  I  might,  had  he  se- 
lected a  book  of  a  different  title.  One  more  likely  to  arouse 
suspicions  in  my  mind  could  not  have  been  found  in  a 
search  of  the  Congressional  Library.  I  had  left  New  York 
on  June  15  th,  and  it  was  now  in  the  direction  of  that  city 
that  my  present  trip  had  taken  me.  I  considered  this  but 
the  first  step  of  my  return  under  the  auspices  of  the  Police 
Department.  "Called  Back"  was  the  title  of  the  book  that 
stared  me  in  the  face.  After  refusing  for  a  long  time  I 
finally  weakened  and  signed  the  shp ;  but  I  did  not  place  it 
on  the  book.  To  have  done  that  would,  in  my  mind,  have 
been  tantamount  to  giving  consent  to  extradition;  and  I 
was  in  no  mood  to  assist  the  detectives  in  their  mean 
work. 


At  what  cost  had  I  signed  that  commitment  slip? 
To  me  it  was  the  act  of  signing  my  own  death-war- 
rant. And  why  should  one  in  my  irresponsible  con- 
dition have  been  forced  to  undergo  so  heart-breaking  an 
ordeal  ?  If  I  was  a  mental  incompetent  —  and  I  was  — 
why  go  through  a  senseless  formality,  meaningless  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law  which  declares  an  insane  person  incapable 
of  intelligent  and  binding  action?  Under  such  conditions 
a  patient  should  not  be  annoyed,  and  in  some  instances  tor- 
tured, by  being  compelled  to  attend  to  the  details  of  his  own 
commitment.  As  well  ask  the  condemned  to  adjust  the 
noose.  I  am  not  opposed  to  "  voluntary  commitments." 
I  simply  plead  for  their  confinement  to  cases  in  which 
the  patient  sufficiently  appreciates  his  condition  to  be 
able  to  make  a  choice.     If  he  be  past  that  condition  let 


38  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

the  law  authorize  some  relative  or  friend  to  look  after  his 
commitment  and,  together  with  competent  doctors,  assume 
the  entire  responsibility  for  depriving  him  of  his  liberty. 
Though  I  have  ventured  one  suggestion  regarding  com- 
mitments, I  shall  not  at  this  time  presume  to  attack  the 
problem  involved.  Its  solution  can  come  only  after  the 
ablest  members  of  the  medical  and  legal  professions  have 
given  it  the  consideration  it  deserves. 


During  the  entire  time  that  my  delusions  of  persecution, 
as  they  are  called,  persisted,  I  could  not  but  respect  the  mind 
which  had  laid  out  so  comprehensive  and  devihshly  ingenious 
and,  at  times,  artistic  a  "Third  Degree,"  as  I  was  called 
upon  to  bear.  And  an  innate  modesty  (more  or  less  fugi- 
tive since  these  peculiar  experiences)  does  not  forbid  my 
mentioning  the  fact  that  I  still  respect  that  mind. 

Suffering,  such  as  I  endured  during  the  month  of  August 
in  my  own  home,  continued  with  gradually  lessening  force 
during  the  eight  months  I  remained  in  this  sanatorium. 
Nevertheless  my  suffering  during  the  first  four  of  these  eight 
months  was  intense.  All  my  senses  were  still  perverted.  My 
sense  of  sight  was  the  first  to  right  itself  —  nearly  enough,  at 
least,  to  rob  the  detectives  of  their  moving  pictures.  But,  be- 
fore the  last  fitful  film  had  run  through  my  mind,  I  beheld 
one  which  I  shall  now  describe.  I  can  trace  it  directly  to 
an  impression  made  on  my  memory  about  two  years  earlier, 
when  I  was  still  sane. 

Shortly  after  going  to  New  York  to  live  I  had  explored  the 
Eden  Musee.  One  of  the  most  grewsome  of  the  spectacles 
which  I  had  seen  in  its  famed  Chamber  of  Horrors  was  a 
representation  of  a  gorilla,  holding  in  its  arms  the  gory  body 
of  a  woman.     It  was  that  impression  which  now  revived 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


39 


in  my  mind.  But,  by  a  process  strictly  in  accordance  with 
Darwin's  theory,  the  Eden  Musee  gorilla  had  become  a  man 
—  in  appearance,  not  unlike  the  beast  that  had  inspired  my 
distorted  thought.  This  man  held  a  bloody  dagger  which 
he  repeatedly  plunged  into  the  woman's  breast.  The  appa- 
rition did  not  terrify  me  at  all.  In  fact  I  found  it  interesting, 
for  I  looked  upon  it  as  a  contrivance  of  the  detectives.  Its 
purpose  I  could  not  imagine,  and  it  distressed  me  the  less 
as  I  reasoned  that  no  additional  criminal  charges  could  make 
my  situation  worse  than  it  already  was. 

For  a  month  or  two,  "false  voices"  continued  to  annoy 
me.  And  if  there  is  a  hell  conducted  on  the  principles  of  my 
temporary  hell,  gossipers  will  one  day  wish  they  had  attended 
strictly  to  their  own  business.  This  is  not  a  confession.  I 
am  no  gossiper,  though  I  cannot  deny  that  I  have  occa- 
sionally gossiped  —  a  little.  And  this  was  my  punishment : 
persons  in  an  adjoining  room  seemed  to  be  repeating  with 
reference  to  me  the  very  same  things  which  I  had  said  of 
others  on  these  communicative  occasions.  I  supposed  that 
those  whom  I  had  talked  about  had  in  some  way  found  me 
out,  and  intended  now  to  take  their  revenge.  If  aU  makers 
of  idle  talk  could  be  put  through  such  a  corrective  course, 
idle  talkers  would  be  abolished  from  the  earth. 

My  sense  of  smell,  too,  became  normal;  but  my  sense 
of  taste  was  slow  in  recovering.  At  each  meal,  poison  was 
still  the  pihe  de  resistance,  and  it  was  not  surprising  that  I 
sometimes  dallied  one,  two,  or  three  hours  over  a  meal,  and 
often  ended  by  not  eating  it  at  all. 

There  was,  however,  another  reason  for  my  frequent 
refusal  to  take  food,  in  my  belief  that  the  detectives  had 
resorted  to  a  more  subtle  method  of  detection.  They  now 
intended  by  each  article  of  food  to  suggest  a  certain  idea, 
and  I  was  expected  to  recognize  the  idea  thus  suggested. 


40  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

Conviction  or  acquittal  depended  upon  my  correct  interpre- 
tation of  their  symbols,  and  my  interpretation  was  to  be 
signified  by  my  eating,  or  not  eating,  the  several  kinds  of 
food  placed  before  me.  To  have  eaten  a  burnt  crust  of 
bread  would  have  been  a  confession  of  arson.  Why? 
Simply  because  the  charred  crust  suggested  fire;  and,  as 
bread  is  the  staff  of  life,  would  it  not  be  an  inevitable 
deduction  that  life  had  been  destroyed  —  destroyed  by  fire 
—  and  that  I  was  the  destroyer  ?  On  one  day  to  eat  a 
given  article  of  food  meant  confession.  The  next  day,  or 
the  next  meal,  a  refusal  to  eat  it  meant  confession.  This 
complication  of  logic  made  it  doubly  difficult  for  me  to 
keep  from  incriminating  myself  and  others. 

It  can  easily  be  seen  that  I  was  between  several  devils  and 
the  deep  sea.  To  eat  or  not  to  eat,  perplexed  me  more  than 
the  problem  conveyed  by  a  few  shorter  words  perplexed  a 
certain  prince,  who,  had  he  lived  a  few  centuries  later  (out 
of  a  book)  might  have  been  forced  to  enter  a  kingdom  where 
kings  and  princes  are  made  and  unmade  on  short  notice. 
Indeed,  he  might  have  lost  his  principality  entirely  —  or, 
at  least,  his  subjects;  for  as  I  later  had  occasion  to  observe, 
the  frequency  with  which  a  dethroned  reason  mounts  a  throne 
and  rules  a  world  is  such  that  self-crowned  royalty  in  asylums 
for  the  insane  receives  but  scant  homage  from  the  less  elated 
members  of  the  court. 

For  several  weeks  I  ate  but  little.  Though  the  desire  for 
food  was  not  wanting,  my  mind  (that  dog-in-the-manger) 
refused  to  let  me  satisfy  my  hunger.  Coaxing  by  the  attend- 
ants was  of  little  avail;  force  was  usually  of  less.  But  the 
threat  that  liquid  nourishment  would  be  administered 
through  my  nostrils  sometimes  prevailed,  for  the  attribute 
of  shrewdness  was  not  so  utterly  lost  that  I  could  not  choose 
the  less  of  two  evils. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  41 

What  I  looked  upon  as  a  gastronomic  ruse  of  the  detec- 
tives sometimes  overcame  my  fear  of  eating.  Every  Sunday 
ice-cream  was  served  with  dinner.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
meal  a  large  pyramid  of  it  would  be  placed  before  me  in  a 
saucer  several  sizes  too  small.  I  believed  that  it  was  never 
to  be  mine  unless  I  first  partook  of  the  more  substantial 
fare.  As  I  dallied  over  the  meal,  that  delicious  pyramid 
would  gradually  melt,  slowly  filling  the  small  saucer,  which 
I  knew  could  not  long  continue  to  hold  all  of  its  original 
contents.  As  this  liquefying  process  advanced  I  became 
more  indifferent  to  my  eventual  fate;  and,  invariably,  before 
a  drop  of  that  precious  reward  had  dripped  from  the  saucer, 
I  had  eaten  enough  of  the  dinner  to  prove  my  title  to  the 
seductive  dessert.  Moreover,  during  its  enjoyment,  I  no 
longer  cared  a  whit  for  charges  or  convictions  of  all  the 
crimes  on  the  calendar.  This  fact  is  less  trifling  than  it 
seems;  for  it  proves  the  value  of  strategy  as  opposed  to 
brute  and  sometimes  brutal  force,  of  which  I  shall  presently 
give  some  illuminating  examples. 


VII 

For  the  first  few  weeks  after  my  arrival  at  the  sanatorium, 
I  was  cared  for  by  two  attendants,  one  by  day  and  one  by 
night.  I  was  still  helpless,  being  unable  to  put  my  feet  out 
of  bed,  much  less  upon  the  floor,  and  it  was  necessary 
that  I  be  continually  watched,  lest  an  impulse  to  walk  should 
seize  me.  After  a  month  or  six  weeks  I  grew  stronger,  and 
from  that  time  had  but  one  attendant,  who  was  with  me  all 
day,  and,  at  night,  slept  in  the  same  room. 

The  earliest  possible  dismissal  of  one  of  my  two  attendants 
was  expedient  for  the  family  purse;  for  the  charges  at  this, 
as  at  all  other  sanatoriums  operated  for  private  gain,  are 
nothing  less  than  extortionate.  But  such  are  the  deficiencies 
in  the  prevailing  treatment  of  the  insane  that  relief  in  one 
respect  occasions  evil  in  another.  No  sooner  was  the  num- 
ber of  attendants  thus  reduced  than  I  was  subjected  to  a 
detestable  form  of  restraint  which  amounted  to  torture.  To 
guard  me  against  myself  while  my  remaining  attendant  slept, 
my  hands  were  imprisoned  in  what  is  known  as  a  "muff." 
A  "muff,"  innocent  enough  to  the  eyes  of  those  who  have 
never  worn  one,  is  in  reality  a  rehc  of  the  Inquisition.  It 
is  an  instrument  of  restraint  which  has  been  in  use  for  cen- 
turies among  ignorant  practitioners,  and  even  in  many  of 
our  public  and  private  institutions  is  still  in  use.  Such  an 
incident  as  I  am  about  to  recount  cannot  occur  in  a  properly 
conducted  institution,  and  that  fact  made  its  occurrence  a 
crime,  though  perhaps  an  unintentional  one;  for  good 
motives  bom  of  professional  ignorance  are  little,  if  at  all, 

42 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  43 

better  than  deliberate  bad  intention.  The  muff  I  wore  was 
made  of  canvas,  and  differed  in  construction  from  a  muff 
designed  for  the  hands  of  fashion  only  in  the  inner  partition, 
also  of  canvas,  which  separated  my  hands  but  allowed 
them  to  overlap.  At  either  end  was  a  strap  which  buckled 
tightly  around  the  wrist  and  was  locked. 

The  assistant  physician,  when  he  announced  to  me  that 
I  was  to  be  subjected  every  night  to  this  restraint,  broke  the 
news  gently  —  so  gently  that  I  did  not  then  know,  nor  did  I 
guess  for  several  months,  why  this  thing  was  done  to  me. 
And  thus  it  was  that  I  drew  deductions  of  my  own  which 
added  not  a  little  to  my  torture.     I  have  already  suggested 
that  an  insane  person  should  be  treated  as  sane  in  all  the  \ 
ways  that  are  possible.     It  is  a  mistaken  delicacy  of  feeling     \ 
which  impels  doctors  and  others  in  charge  to  avoid  any  direct 
reference  to  a  patient's  insanity  in  the  presence  of  the  patient    / 
himself.     I  believe  it  would  have  mitigated  my  distress  to    ' 
have  been  told  in  plain  English  that  I  was  insane  and  had, 
because  of  that  condition,  attempted  suicide.     To  be  sure  I 
should  perhaps  have  regarded  those  about  me  as  suffering     1 
under  a  strange  delusion,  but  I  believe  that  the  reason  for     ' 
their  behavior  would  have  wormed  its  way  into  my  under- 
standing months  earlier  than  it  did. 

However,  the  physician  in  charge  was  really  trying,  so  far 
as  he  knew  how,  to  do  a  very  disagreeable  thing  as  delicately 
as  possible.  The  gas-jet  in  my  room  was  situated  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  stronger  light  was  needed  to  find  the  keyholes 
and  lock  the  muff  when  adjusted.  Hence,  an  attendant 
was  standing  by  with  a  lighted  candle.  Seating  himself  on 
the  side  of  the  bed  the  physician  said:  "You  won't  try  again 
to  do  what  you  did  in  New  Haven,  will  you?"  Now  one 
may  have  done  many  things  in  a  city  where  he  has  lived  for 
a  score  of  years,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  I  failed  to  catch 


44  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

the  meaning  of  the  doctor's  question.  It  was  only  after 
months  of  secret  puzzling  that  I  at  last  did  discover  his  refer- 
ence to  my  attempted  suicide.  But  now  the  burning  candle 
in  the  hands  of  the  attendant,  and  a  certain  similarity  be- 
tween the  doctor's  name  and  the  name  of  a  man  once  accused 
of  arson,  led  me  to  imagine  that  in  some  way  I  had  been 
connected  with  that  crime;  and  for  months  I  firmly  believed 
I  stood  charged  as  an  accomplice. 

The  putting  on  of  the  muff  was  the  most  humiliating  in- 
cident of  my  life.  The  shaving  of  my  legs  and  the  wearing 
on  my  brow  of  the  court-plaster  brand  of  infamy  had  been 
humiliating,  but  those  experiences  had  not  overwhelmed  my 
very  heart  as  did  this  bitter  ordeal.  I  resisted  weakly,  and, 
after  the  muff  was  adjusted  and  locked,  for  the  first  time 
since  my  mental  collapse,  I  wept.  And  I  remember  distinctly 
why  I  wept.  The  key  that  locked  the  muff  imlocked  in 
imagination  the  door  of  the  home  in  New  Haven  which  I  be- 
lieved I  had  disgraced,  —  and  seemed  for  a  time  to  unlock 
my  heart.  Anguish  beat  my  mind  into  a  momentary  sanity, 
and  with  a  wholly  sane  emotion  I  keenly  felt  my  imagined 
disgrace.  As  is  usual  under  such  circumstances  my  thoughts 
centered  on  my  mother.  Her  (and  other  members  of 
the  family)  I  could  plainly  see  at  home  in  a  state  of  dejection 
and  despair  over  her  imprisoned  and  heartless  son.  I  wore 
the  muff  each  night  for  several  weeks,  and  for  the  first  few 
nights  the  unhappy  glimpses  of  a  ruined  home  recurred  and 
increased  my  suffering. 

It  was  not  always  as  an  instrument  of  restraint  that  the 
muff  was  employed.  Frequently  it  was  used  as  a  means  of 
discipline,  on  account  of  supposed  stubborn  disobedience  to 
the  attendant.  Many  times  was  I  roughly  overpowered  by 
two  attendants  who  locked  my  hands  and  coerced  me  to 
do  whatever  I  had  refused  to  do.     My  arms  and  hands  were 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  45 

my  only  weapons  of  defense.  My  feet  were  still  in  plaster 
casts,  and  my  back  had  been  so  severely  injured  as  to  neces- 
sitate my  lying  flat  upon  it  most  of  the  time.  It  was  so 
that  these  unequal  fights  were  fought.  And  I  had  not  even 
the  satisfaction  of  tongue-lashing  my  oppressors  for  I  was 
practically  speechless. 

My  attendants,  like  most  others  in  such  institutions,  were 
ill- qualified  to  understand  the  operations  of  my  mind,  and 
what  they  could  not  understand  they  would  seldom  tolerate. 
Yet  they  were  not  entirely  to  blame.  They  were  simply 
carrying  out  to  the  letter,  orders  which  they  had  received 
from_J;he  doctors.  In  fact  one  of  these  attendants  later 
became  so  disgusted  with  the  continued  exercise  of  unfair- 
ness toward  me  that  he  secretly  favored  me  by  refraining 
from  force  when  I  refused  to  do  certain  things  which  he 
knew  would  annoy  and  distress  me. 

To  ask  a  patient  in  my  condition  to  take  a  little  medicated 
sugar  seemed  reasonable.  I  concede  that;  and  my  refusal 
was  exasperating.  Had  I  been  in  the  place  of  my  keepers, 
and  they  in  mine,  I  might  have  acted  no  more  wisely  than 
they.  But,  from  my  point  of  view,  my  refusal  was  justifiable. 
That  innocuous  sugar  disc  to  me  seemed  saturated  with  the 
blood  of  loved  ones ;  and  so  much  as  to  touch  it  was  to  shed 
their  blood  —  perhaps  on  the  very  scaffold  on  which  I  was 
destined  to  die.  For  myself  I  cared  little.  I  was  anxious 
to  die,  and  eagerly  would  I  have  taken  the  sugar  disc  had  I 
had  any  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  deadly  poison.  The 
sooner  I  could  die  and  be  forgotten  the  better  for  all  with 
whom  I  had  ever  come  in  contact.  To  continue  to  live 
was  simply  to  be  the  treacherous  tool  of  unscrupulous  detec- 
tives, eager  to  exterminate  my  innocent  relatives  and 
friends,  if  so  their  fame  could  be  made  secure  in  the  annals 
of  their  craft. 


46  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

But  the  thoughts  associated  with  the  taking  of  the  medicine 
were  seldom  twice  alike.  If,  before  it,  something  happened 
to  remind  me  of  mother,  father,  a  relative,  or  a  friend,  I 
imagined  that  compliance  would  compromise,  if  not  even- 
tually destroy,  that  particular  person.  Who  would  not 
resist  when  meek  acceptance  would  be  a  confession  which 
would  doom  his  own  mother  or  father  to  prison,  or  ignominy, 
or  death  ?  It  was  for  this  that  I  was  reviled,  for  this,  sub- 
jected to  cruel  restraint. 

Let  those  in  charge  of  such  institutions,  who  have  a  stub- 
born patient  to  deal  with,  remember  what  I  say.  In  the 
strict  sense  of  the  word  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
genuinely  stubborn  insane  person.  The  stubborn  men 
and  women  in  the  world  are  sane;  and  the  fortunate 
prevalence  of  sanity  may  be  approximately  estimated  by 
the  preponderance  of  stubbornness  in  society  at  large. 
When  one  possessed  of  the  blessed  means  of  resolving 
his  own  errors  continues  to  cherish  an  unreasonable  be- 
lief —  that  is  stubbornness.  But  for  a  man  bereft  of  reason 
to  adhere  to  an  idea  which  to  him  seems  absolutely  correct 
and  true  because  he  has  been  deprived  of  the  means  of  detect- 
ing his  error  —  that  is  not  stubbornness.  It  is  a  symptom 
of  his  disease,  and  merits  the  indulgence  of  forbearance,  if 
not  genuine  sympathy.  Certainly  the  afflicted  one  deserves 
no  punishment.  As  well  punish  with  a  slap  the  cheek  that 
is  disfigured  by  the  mumps. 

The  attendant  who  was  with  me  most  of  the  time  that  I 
remained  at  the  sanatorium  was  a  young  man  of  about  my 
own  age.  He  had  never  before  worked  in  an  institution  of 
that  character,  though  he  had  acted  as  a  nurse  and  com- 
panion in  cases  where  the  patient  could  be  treated  at  home. 
Him  I  regarded  as  a  detective,  or,  rather,  as  two  detectives, 
one  of  whom  watched  me  by  day,  and  the  other  —  a  perfect 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  47 

double  —  by  night.  He  was  an  enemy,  and  his  professed 
sympathy  —  which  I  now  know  was  genuine  —  only  made 
me  hate  him  the  more.  As  he  was  ignorant  of  the  methods 
of  treatment  in  vogue  in  hospitals  for  the  insane  it  was  several 
weeks  before  this  exceptional  attendant  dared  put  in  jeop- 
ardy his  position  by  presuming  to  shield  me  against  unwise 
orders  of  the  doctors.  But  when  at  last  he  awoke  to  the 
situation  he  repeatedly  interposed  in  my  behalf.  More 
than  once  the  doctor  who  was  both  owner  and  superintend- 
ent, threatened  to  discharge  him  for  alleged  ofhciousness. 
But  better  judgment  usually  held  the  doctor's  wrath  in 
check,  for  he  realized  that  not  one  attendant  in  a  hundred 
was  so  competent.  It  was  indeed  contrary  to  custom  (for 
in  this  matter  attendants  are  unlike  trained  nurses  in  general 
hospitals)  that  this  attendant  should  take  a  lively  personal 
interest  in  me.  Surely  it  was  not  the  paltry  and  insulting 
four  and  a  half  dollars  a  week  that  induced  him  to  work 
under  such  doctors,  and  in  an  institution  which  he  de- 
tested. Such  orders  as  he  modified  were  without  exception 
unfair,  and  for  exercising  his  superior  judgment  he  deserves 
no  criticism.  He  was  unconsciously  an  advocate  of  Non- 
Restraint,  working  in  an  institution  where  Restraint  was 
tolerated  and  pretty  freely  used.  Naturally  there  was 
friction,  for  Restraint  is  as  a  cinder  in  the  eye  of  one 
who  appreciates  the  advantages  of  humane  treatment. 

Not  only  did  my  attendant  frequently  exhibit  more  wis- 
dom than  the  superintendent,  but  he  also  obeyed  the  dictates 
of  a  better  conscience  than  that  of  his  nominal  superior,  the 
assistant  physician,  as  the  following  incident  will  prove. 
On  three  occasions  this  assistant  physician  treated  me  with 
a  signal  lack  of  consideration,  and  in  at  least  one  instance 
he  was  \acious.  When  this  latter  incident  occurred  I  was, 
both  physically  and  mentally,  helpless.   My  feet  were  swollen 


48  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

and  still  in  plaster  bandages.  I  was  all  but  mute,  uttering 
only  an  occasional  expletive  when  forced  to  do  things  against 
my  will. 

One  morning  Doctor  No-name  (he  represents  a  t3^e)  en- 
tered my  room. 

"Good-morning!    How  are  you  feeling?"  he  asked. 

No  answer. 

"Aren't  you  feeling  well?" 

No  answer. 

"Why  don't  you  talk?"  said  he  with  irritation. 

Still  no  answer,  except  perhaps  a  contemptuous  look  such 
as  is  so  often  the  essence  of  eloquence.  Suddenly,  and  with- 
out the  slightest  warning,  as  a  petulant  child  locked  in  a  room 
for  disobedience  might  treat  a  pillow,  he  seized  my  arm  and 
jerked  me  from  the  bed.  It  was  wonderful  that  the  bones  of 
my  ankles  and  feet,  not  yet  thoroughly  knitted,  were  not 
again  broken.  And  this  was  the  performance  of  the  very 
man  who  had  locked  my  hands  in  the  "muff,"  that  I 
might  not  injure  myself! 

I  uttered  not  a  word,  —  not  even  the  usual  automatic 
expletive. 

"Why  don't  you  talk?"  he  again  asked. 

Though  rather  slow  in  replying  (it  has  now  been  over 
seven  years),  I  will  take  pleasure  in  doing  so  by  sending  that 
doctor  a  copy  of  this  book  —  my  answer  —  if  he  will  but 
send  me  his  address.  This  physician  left  the  sanatorium 
about  two  years  after  I  did.  That  such  a  man  could  con- 
tinue in  so  responsible  a  position,  for  so  long,  indicates  the 
little  care  generally  exercised  by  owners  of  sanatoriums  in 
the  selection  of  their  assistants. 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  duty  to  brand  any  physician  for  cruelty 
and  incompetence,  for  the  worst  that  ever  lived  has  un- 
doubtedly done  many  good  deeds.     But  here  is  the  type  of 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  49 

man  that  has  wrought  havoc  among  the  helpless  insane  — 
a  type  which  unfortunately  is  still  too  often  found  (only  not 
found  soon  enough)  in  our  private  and  public  institutions. 
It  therefore  seems  but  fair  that  the  men  whose  destiny  put 
them  in  touch  with  one  who  has  lived  to  publish  his  story 
should  at  least  bear  the  brunt  of  illustration. 


VIII 

My  escape  from  death  when  I  dropped  from  the  window- 
is  hardly  more  remarkable  than  the  perfect  present  condi- 
tion of  my  feet  and  ankles,  which  were  that  day  so  seriously 
injured.  The  fact  that  I  am  not  now  a  cripple  I  ascribe  to 
two  causes.  First :  to  God  —  or  Providence,  or  Fate,  or  luck, 
if  you  choose.  And  second:  such  earthly  praise  as  may  be 
properly  bestowed  belongs  to  the  physician  who,  with  con- 
summate skill,  set  my  broken  bones. 

It  was  at  the  sanatorium  that  my  ankles  were  finally  re- 
stored to  a  semblance  of  their  former  utility.  They  were 
there  subjected  to  a  course  of  heroic  treatment;  but  as  to-day 
they  permit  me  to  walk,  run,  and  dance,  as  those  do  who 
have  never  been  crippled,  my  hours  of  torture  endured  under 
my  first  attempts  to  walk  are  almost  pleasant  to  recall. 
About  five  months  from  the  date  of  my  fall  I  was  allowed, 
or  rather  compelled,  to  place  my  feet  on  the  floor  and  at- 
tempt to  walk.  They  were  still  swollen,  absolutely  with- 
out action,  and  acutely  sensitive  to  the  slightest  pressure. 
From  the  time  my  feet  were  injured,  until  I  again  began 
to  talk  —  two  years  later  —  I  asked  not  one  question  as  to 
the  probability  of  my  ever  regaining  the  use  of  them.  The 
fact  was,  I  never  expected  to  walk  naturally  again.  The 
doctor's  desire  to  have  me  walk  I  believed  to  be  inspired  by 
the  detectives,  of  whom,  indeed,  I  supposed  the  doctor  him- 
self to  be  one.  Had  there  been  any  confession  to  make  I 
am  sure  it  would  have  been  yielded  under  the  stress  of  this 
ultimate  torture.    The  million  needle  points  which,   just 

5° 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  51 

prior  to  my  mental  collapse,  seemed  to  goad  my  brain,  now 
centered  their  unwelcome  attention  on  the  soles  of  my  feet. 
Had  the  floor  been  studded  with  minute  stilettoes  my  suffer- 
ings could  hardly  have  been  more  intense.  For  several  weeks 
assistance  was  necessary  with  each  attempt  to  walk,  and 
each  attempt  was  an  ordeal.  Every  drop  of  blood  in  my 
body  seemed  to  find  an  irresistible  attraction  at  the  points 
of  pain.  Sweat  stood  in  beads  on  either  foot,  wrung  from 
my  blood  by  agony.  Believing  that  it  would  be  only  a 
question  of  time  when  I  should  be  tried,  condemned,  and 
executed  for  some  one  of  my  countless  felonies,  I  looked 
upon  the  attempt  to  prevent  my  continuing  a  cripple  for 
the  brief  remainder  of  my  days  as  prompted  by  anything 
but  benevolence. 

I  find  no  fault  with  the  heroic  treatment  which  necessi- 
tated the  bearing  of  my  weight  on  my  feet  at  that  time;  but 
I  do  think  the  superintendent  of  this  sanatorium  would  have 
proved  himself  more  himiane  had  he  not  peremptorily  or- 
dered my  attendant  to  discontinue  the  use  of  a  support  which, 
until  the  plaster  bandages  were  removed,  had  enabled  me 
to  keep  my  legs  in  a  horizontal  position  during  those  hours 
of  the  day  that  I  sat  in  a  chair.  His  order  was  that  I 
should  put  my  legs  down  and  keep  them  down,  whether  it 
caused  me  suffering  or  not.  The  pain  was  of  course  intense 
when  the  blood  again  began  to  circulate  freely  through  tis- 
sues long  imused  to  its  full  pressure,  and  so  evident  was 
my  distress  that  the  attendant  disregarded  the  doctor's  com- 
mand.^ He  would  remove  the  forbidden  support  for  only  a 
few  minutes  at  a  time,  gradually  lengthening  the  intervals 
until  at  last  I  was  able  to  do  without  the  support  entirely. 
But,  while  favoring  me,  he  had  to  remain  on  watch  to  guard 

'  I  am  here  corroborated  by  the  sworn  statement  of  the  attendant  who  has 
given  me  an  affidavit  which  covers  all  incidents  in  which  he  played  a  part. 


52  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

against  discovery.  Each  day  for  several  weeks  I  was  forced 
at  first  to  stagger  and  finally  to  walk  across  the  room  and 
back  to  the  bed.  The  distance  was  increased  as  the  pain 
diminished,  until  I  was  able  to  walk  without  more  discomfort 
than  a  comparatively  pleasant  sensation  of  lameness.  For 
at  least  two  months  after  I  first  touched  my  feet  to  the  floor 
attendants  had  to  carry  me  up  and  down  stairs,  and  for 
several  months  longer  I  went  flat-footed. 

Delusions  of  persecution  —  which  include  "delusions  of 
self -reference "  —  though  a  source  of  annoyance  while  J  was 
in  an  inactive  state,  annoyed  and  distressed  me  even  more 
when  I  began  to  move  about  and  was  obliged  to  associate 
with  other  patients.  To  my  mind  not  only  were  the  doctors 
and  attendants  detectives;  each  patient  was  a  detective  and 
the  whole  institution  was  a  part  of  the  "Third  Degree." 
Scarcely  any  remark  was  made  in  my  presence  that  I  could 
not  twist  into  a  cleverly  veiled  reference  to  myseK.  In  each 
person  I  could  see  a  resemblance  to  persons  I  had  known,  or 
to  the  principals  or  victims  of  the  crimes  with  which  I 
imagined  myself  charged.  I  refused  to  read,  for  to  read 
veiled  charges  and  fail  to  assert  my  innocence  was  to 
incriminate  both  myself  and  others.  But  I  looked  with 
longing  glances  upon  all  printed  matter  and,  as  my  curiosity 
was  continuafly  piqued,  this  enforced  abstinence  grew  to  be 
well-nigh  intolerable. 

It  became  again  highly  expedient  to  the  family  purse,  upon 
which  my  illness  was  so  serious  a  drain,  that  every  possible 
saving  be  made.  Therefore  I  was  transferred  from  the  main 
building,  where  I  had  a  private  room  and  a  special  attend- 
ant, to  a  ward  where  I  was  to  mingle,  imder  an  aggregate 
sort  of  supervision,  with  fifteen  or  twenty  other  patients. 
Here  I  had  no  special  attendant  by  day,  though  one  slept 
in  my  room  at  night. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  53 

Of  this  ward  I  had  heard  alarming  reports  —  and  these 
from  the  lips  of  several  attendants.  I  was  therefore  greatly 
disturbed  at  the  proposed  change.  But,  the  transfer  once 
accomplished,  after  a  few  days  I  really  liked  my  new  quar- 
ters better  than  the  old.  During  the  entire  time  I  remained 
at  the  sanatorium  I  was  more  alert  mentally  than  I  gave 
evidence  of  being.  But  not  until  after  my  removal  to  this 
ward  where  I  was  left  alone  for  hours  every  day  did  I  dare 
to  give  evidence  of  my  alertness.  Here  I  even  went  so  far 
on  one  occasion  as  to  joke  with  my  new  attendant.  He 
had  been  trying  to  persuade  me  to  take  a  bath.  I  refused, 
mainly  because  I  did  not  like  the  looks  of  the  bath-room, 
which,  with  its  cement  floor  and  central  drain,  resembled 
the  washing-room  of  an  improved  stable.  After  all  else 
had  failed  the  attendant  tried  the  role  of  sympathizer. 

"Now  I  know  just  how  you  feel,"  said  he,  "I  can  put 
myself  in  your  place." 

"Well,  if  you  can,  do  it  and  take  the  bath  yourself,"  said  I. 

The  remark  is  brilliant  by  contrast  with  the  dismal  source 
from  which  it  escaped.  "Escaped"  is  the  word,  for  the 
fear  that  I  should  hasten  my  trial  by  exhibiting  too  great  a 
gain  in  health,  mental  or  physical,  was  already  upon  me;  and 
it  controlled  much  of  my  conduct  during  the  succeeding 
months  of  despondency. 

Having  now  no  special  attendant  I  spent  many  hours  in 
my  room,  alone,  but  not  absolutely  alone,  for  somewhere 
the  eye  of  a  detective  was  evermore  upon  me.  I  soon 
fancied  that  my  case  had  been  transferred  from  the  State 
to  the  Federal  authorities,  and  the  fear  of  an  all-powerful 
Secret  Service  did  not  tend  to  ease  my  laboring  imagination. 
Comparative  solitude,  however,  gave  me  courage  and  soon 
I  began  to  read,  regardless  of  consequences.  During  the 
entire  period  of  my  depression,  every  publication  seemed  to 


54  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

have  been  written  and  printed  for  me,  and  me  alone.  Books, 
magazines,  and  newspapers  seemed  to  be  special  editions. 
The  fact  that  I  well  knew  how  inordinate  would  be  the  cost 
of  such  a  procedure  in  no  way  shook  my  faith  in  it.  In- 
)    deed,  that  I  was  costing  my  persecutors  fabulous  sums  of 

-  money  was  a  source  of  secret  satisfaction  —  a  psychological 
phenomenon,  perhaps  associated  with  delusions  of  grandeur 
which  long  afterwards  asserted  themselves.  During  the  earH- 
est  stages  of  my  illness  I  had  lost  count  of  time,  and  the 
calendar  did  not  right  itself  until  the  day  when  I  largely 
regained  my  reason.  Meanwhile,  the  date  on  each  newspaper 
was,  according  to  my  reckoning,  two  weeks  out  of  the  way. 
This  confirmed  my  belief  in  the  special  editions  as  a  part  of 
the  "Third  Degree." 

Most  sane  people  think  that  no  insane  person  can  reason 
logically.     But  this  is  not  so.     Upon  unreasonable  prem- 

,-  ises  I  made  most  reasonable  deductions,  and  that  at  the  time 
when  my  mind  was  in  its  most  disturbed  condition.     Had 

;  the  papers  which  I  read  on  the  day  which  I  supposed  to  be 
February  ist  borne  a  January  date,  I  might  not  then,  for 
so  long  a  time,  have  believed  in  a  special  edition.  Probably 
I  should  have  inferred  that  the  regular  editions  had  been 
held  back.  But  the  papers  I  had  were  dated  about  two 
weeks  ahead.  Now  if  a  sane  person  on  February  ist  re- 
ceive a  newspaper  dated  February  14th,  he  will  be  fully  jus- 
tified in  thinking  something  wrong,  either  with  the  paper  or 
with  himself.  But  the  shifted  calendar  which  had  planted 
itself  in  my  mind  meant  as  much  to  me  as  the  true  calendar 
does  to  any  sane  business  man.  During  the  seven  hundred 
and  ninety-eight  days  of  depression  I  drew  countless  incor- 
rect deductions.  But  such  as  they  were  they  were  deduc- 
tions, and  the  mental  process  was  not  other  than  that  which 
takes  place  in  a  well-ordered  mind. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  55 

My  gradually  increasing  vitality,  although  it  increased  my 
fear  of  trial,  impelled  me  to  take  new  risks.  I  began  to 
read  not  only  newspapers,  but  also  such  books  as  were  placed 
within  my  reach.  Yet  had  they  not  been  placed  there  I  should 
have  gone  without  them,  for  I  would  never  ask  even  for 
what  I  greatly  desired  and  knew  I  could  have  for  the  asking. 

Whatever  love  of  literature  I  now  have  dates  from  this 
time,  when  I  was  a  mental  incompetent  and  confined.  Lying 
on  a  shelf  in  my  room  was  a  large  volume  of  George  Eliot's 
works.  For  several  days  I  cast  longing  glances  at  the  book 
and  finally  plucked  up  the  courage  to  take  little  nibbles  now 
and  then.  These  were  so  good  that  I  grew  bold  and  at  last 
began  to  read  the  book  openly.  Its  contents  at  the  time 
made  but  little  impression  on  my  mind,  but  I  enjoyed  it.  I 
read  also  some  of  Addison's  essays ;  and  had  I  been  fortunate 
enough  to  have  read  these  earlier  in  life  I  might  have  been 
spared  the  delusion  that  I  could  detect  in  many  passages  the 
altering  hand  of  my  persecutors. 


The  friendly  attendant,  from  whom  I  was  now  separated, 
tried  upon  all  occasions  to  send  his  favors  after  me  into  my 
new  quarters.  At  first  he  came  in  person  to  see  me,  but  the 
superintendent  soon  forbade  that,  and  also  ordered  him  not 
to  communicate  with  me  in  any  way.  It  was  this,  and  other 
differences  naturally  arising  between  such  a  doctor  and  such 
an  attendant,  that  soon  brought  about  the  discharge  of  the 
latter.  But  "  discharge"  is  hardly  the  word,  for  the  attendant 
had  become  disgusted  with  the  institution,  and  had  remained 
so  long  only  because  of  his  interest  in  me.  When  he  left,  he 
informed  the  owner  that  he  would  soon  cause  my  removal 
from  the  institution.  This  he  did.  He  persuaded  my  rela- 
tives to  let  him  care  for  me  in  his  own  home.     I  left  the  sana- 


56  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

torium  in  March,  1901,  and  remained  for  three  months  in  the 
home  of  my  former  attendant  who  lived  with  a  grandmother 
and  an  aunt  in  a  small  town  not  far  from  New  Haven. 

It  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  I  entertained  any  affection  for 
my  friendly  keeper.  I  continued  to  regard  him  as  an  enemy; 
and  my  life  at  his  home  became  a  monotonous  round  of 
displeasures.  I  took  my  three  meals  a  day.  I  would  sit 
listlessly  for  hours  at  a  time  in  the  house.     Daily  I  went  out 

—  attended,  of  course  —  for  short  walks  about  the  town. 
These  were  not  enjoyable.  I  beheved  everybody  was 
famihar  with  my  black  record  and  expected  me  to  be  put  to 
death.  Indeed,  I  wondered  why  passers-by  did  not  revile  or 
even  stone  me.  Once  I  was  sure  I  heard  a  little  girl  call  me 
"Traitor!"  That,  I  believe,  was  my  last  "false  voice,"  but 
it  made  such  an  impression  that  I  can  even  now  recall 
vividly  the  appearance  of  that  dreadful  child. 

During  these  three  months  I  again  refused  to  read  books, 
though  they  were  within  reach,  and  I  returned  to  newspapers 

—  probably  because  I  feared  to  indicate  too  much  improve- 
ment and  thus  hasten  my  trial. 

My  attendant  and  his  relatives  were  very  kind  and  very 
patient  —  for  I  was  still  intractable.  But  their  efforts  to 
make  me  comfortable,  so  far  as  they  had  any  effect,  made 
keener  my  desire  for  death  at  my  own  hands.  I  shrank 
from  death;  — but  I  preferred  to  die  by  my  own  hand  and 
take  the  blame  for  it,  rather  than  to  be  executed  and  bring 
lasting  disgrace  on  my  family,  friends,  and  I  may  add  with 
truth,  on  Yale.  For  I  reasoned  that  parents  throughout  the 
country  would  withhold  their  sons  from  a  university  which 
numbered  among  its  graduates  such  a  despicable  being  as  I. 
But  from  any  tragic  act  I  was  providentially  restrained  by  the 
very  delusion  which  gave  birth  to  the  desire, — in  a  way  which 
signally  appeared  on  a  later  and,  to  me,  memorable  day. 


IX 

I  AM  in  a  position  not  unlike  that  of  a  man  whose  obituary 
notice  has  appeared  prematurely.  Few  men  have  ever  had 
a  better  opportunity  than  I  to  test  the  quality  of  their  rel- 
atives' affection,  and  similarly  to  test  their  friends.  That 
my  relatives  and  friends  did  their  duty  and  did  it  willingly 
is  naturally  a  constant  source  of  satisfaction  to  me.  Indeed, 
I  believe  that  that  unbroken  record  of  devotion  is  one  of  the 
factors  which  have  made  it  possible  for  me  to  take  up  again 
my  duties  in  the  social  and  business  world  with  a  comfort- 
able feeling  of  continuity.  I  can  now  view  my  past  with  as 
much  complacency  as  does  the  man  whose  life  has  been  uni- 
formly uneventful. 

As  I  have  seen  scores  of  insane  persons  neglected  by  their 
relatives  —  a  neglect  which  recovered  patients  resent  and 
often  brood  upon  —  my  sense  of  gratitude  is  the  livelier,  and 
especially  so  because  of  the  difficulty  with  which  friendly  in- 
tercourse with  me  was  maintained  during  two  of  the  three 
years  I  was  ill.  Relatives  and  friends  frequently  called  to  see 
me.  True,  these  calls  were  trying  for  all  concerned.  I  spoke 
to  none,  not  even  to  my  mother  and  father.  For,  though  they 
all  appeared  about  as  they  used  to  appear,  I  was  able  to  de- 
tect some  slight  difference  in  look  or  gesture,  and  this  was 
enough  to  confirm  my  belief  that  they  were  impersonators, 
engaged  in  a  conspiracy,  not  merely  to  entrap  me,  but  to 
incriminate  those  whom  they  impersonated.  It  is  not 
strange,  then,  that  I  refused  to  have  anything  to  say  to  them, 
or  to  permit  them  to  come  near  me.    To  have  kissed  the 

57 


58  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

woman  who  was  my  mother,  but  whom  I  believed  to  be  a 
Federal  conspirator,  would  have  been  an  act  of  betrayal. 
These  interviews  were  much  harder  for  my  relatives  and 
friends  than  for  me.  But  even  to  me  they  were  in  the  nature 
of  ordeals;  and  though  I  suffered  less  at  these  particular 
moments  than  my  callers  did,  my  sum  of  suffering  was  greater, 
for  I  was  constantly  anticipating  these  unwelcome  but  event- 
ually beneficial  visitations. 

Suppose  my  relatives  and  friends  had  held  aloof  during 
this  apparently  hopeless  period,  what  to-day  would  be  my 
feelings  toward  them?  Let  others  answer.  For  over  two 
years  I  considered  all  letters  forgeries.  Yet  the  day  came 
when  I  convinced  myself  of  their  genuineness  and  the  gen- 
uineness of  the  love  of  those  who  sent  them.  Perhaps  some 
of  the  persons  related  to  the  two  hundred  thousand  victims  of 
insanity  in  this  country  to-day  will  find  some  comfort  in  this 
fact.  To  be  on  the  safe  and  humane  side  let  every  sane  rel- 
ative and  friend  of  persons  so  afflicted  remember  the  Golden 
Rule,  which  has  never  been  suspended  with  respect  to  the 
insane.  Go  to  see  them,  with  as  much  of  the  light  of  sanity 
as  you  possess;  treat  them  sanely,  write  them  sane  letters; 
keep  them  informed  about  the  home-circle;  let  not  your  devo- 
tion flag,  nor  accept  any  repulse.  There  is  a  sure  reward  — 
sometime  —  somewhere. 


The  consensus  of  opinion  now  was  that  my  condition  was 
unlikely  ever  to  improve,  and  the  question  of  my  commit- 
ment to  some  institution  where  incurable  cases  could  be 
treated  came  up  for  decision.  While  it  was  being  consid- 
ered my  attendant  kept  assuring  me  that  it  would  be  unnec- 
essary to  commit  me  to  an  institution  if  I  would  only  show 
some  improvement.     For  that  purpose  he  repeatedly  sug- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  59 

gested  that  I  go  to  New  Haven  and  spend  a  day  at  home. 
I  did  finally  indicate  my  willingness  to  make  the  trip;  and 
nothing  proves  more  conclusively  my  dread  of  a  hospital 
for  the  insane  than  my  action  that  day.  I  did  not  wish  to 
go  to  New  Haven.  I  dreaded  doing  so.  To  my  best  knowl- 
edge and  belief  I  had  no  home  there,  nor  did  I  have  any 
relatives  or  friends  who  would  greet  me  upon  my  return. 
How  could  they,  if  still  free,  even  approach  me,  while  I  was 
surrounded  by  detectives?  Then,  too,  I  had  a  lurking  sus- 
picion that  my  attendant's  offer  was  made  in  the  belief  that 
I  would  not  dare  accept  it.  By  taking  him  at  his  word  I 
knew  that  I  should  at  least  have  an  opportunity  to  test  the 
truth  of  many  of  his  statements  regarding  my  old  home.  Life 
had  become  insupportable ;  and  back  of  my  consent  to  return 
was  a  willingness  to  beard  the  detectives  in  their  own  den, 
regardless  of  consequences.  With  these  and  many  other 
reflections  I  started  for  the  train.  The  events  of  the  journey 
which  followed  are  of  no  moment.  We  soon  reached  the 
New  Haven  station;  and,  as  I  had  expected,  no  relative  or 
friend  was  there  to  greet  us.  This  apparent  indifference  of 
relatives  seemed  to  support  my  suspicion  that  my  attendant 
had  not  told  me  the  truth;  but  I  found  little  satisfaction  in 
uncovering  his  deceit,  for  the  more  of  a  liar  I  proved  him  to 
be,  the  worse  would  be  my  position.  We  walked  to  the  front 
of  the  station  and  stood  there  for  almost  half  an  hour.  The 
unfortunate  but  perfectly  natural  wording  of  a  question 
caused  the  delay. 

"Well,  shall  we  go  home?"  said  my  attendant. 

How  could  I  say  "Yes"?  I  had  no  home.  I  feel  sure 
I  should  finally  have  said  "No,"  had  he  continued  to  put 
the  question  in  that  form.  Consciously  or  unconsciously, 
however,  he  altered  it.  "Shall  we  go  to  30  Trumbull 
Street?"    That  was  what  I  had  been  waiting  for.     Cer- 


6o  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

tainly  I  would  go  to  the  house  designated  by  that  number. 
I  had  come  to  New  Haven  to  see  that  house;  and  I  had  just 
a  faint  hope  that  its  appearance  and  the  appearance  of  its 
occupants  might  prove  convincing. 

At  home  my  visit  came  as  a  complete  surprise.  I  could 
not  believe  that  my  relatives  —  if  they  were  relatives  —  had 
not  been  informed  of  my  presence  in  the  city,  and  their 
words  and  actions  upon  my  arrival  confirmed  suspicion  and 
killed  the  faint  hope  I  had  briefly  cherished.  My  hosts  were 
simply  the  same  old  persecutors  with  whom  I  had  already 
had  too  much  to  do.  Soon  after  my  arrival  dinner  was 
served.  I  sat  at  my  old  place  at  the  table,  and  secretly 
admired  the  skill  with  which  he  who  asked  the  blessing 
imitated  the  language  and  the  well-remembered  intonation 
of  my  father's  voice.  But  alas!  for  the  family  —  I  im- 
agined my  relatives  banished  and  languishing  in  prison, 
and  the  old  home  confiscated  by  the  government! 


X 

Though  my  few  hours  at  home  failed  to  prove  that  I  did 
not  belong  in  an  institution,  it  served  one  good  purpose.  Cer- 
tain relatives  who  had  objected  to  my  commitment  now 
agreed  that  there  was  no  alternative,  and,  accordingly,  my 
eldest  brother  caused  himself  to  be  appointed  my  conservator. 
He  had  long  favored  taking  such  action,  but  other  relatives 
counseled  delay.  They  had  been  deterred  by  that  inbred 
dread  of  seeing  a  member  of  the  family  branded  by  law  as  a 
mental  incompetent,  and,  to  a  degree,  stigmatized  by  an  im- 
questionably  mistaken  public  opinion.  The  very  thought  was 
repugnant;  and  a  mistaken  sense  of  duty  —  and  perhaps  a 
suggestion  of  pride  —  led  them  to  wish  me  out  of  such  an 
institution  as  long  as  possible. 

Though  at  the  time  I  dreaded  commitment,  it  was  the  best 
possible  thing  that  could  befall  me;  and  I  wish  to  emphasize 
this  fact  in  order  that  others,  situated  as  my  relatives  were, 
may  have  fewer  misgivings.  In  most  instances  an  insane 
person  is  more  likely  to  recover  in  a  reputable  institution 
than  he  is  if  kept  in  touch  with  the  world  he  knew  while 
sane.  To  be  in  the  world  and  not  of  it  is  exasperating.  The 
constant  friction  that  is  inevitable  under  such  conditions  — 
conditions  such  as  existed  for  me  in  the  home  of  my  attend- 
ant —  can  only  aggravate  the  mental  disturbance.  Par- 
ticularly is  this  true  of  those  laboring  under  delusions  of 
persecution.  Such  delusions  multiply  with  the  complexity  of 
the  life  led.  It  is  the  even-going  routine  of  institutional  life 
which  affords  the  indispensable  quieting  effect  —  provided 

6i 


62  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

that  routine  is  well  ordered,  and  not  defeated  by  annoyances 
imposed  by  ignorant  or  indifferent  doctors  and  attendants. 

My  commitment  occurred  on  June  nth,  1901.  The  insti- 
tution to  which  I  was  committed  is  considered  one  of  the 
best  of  its  kind  in  the  country;  and  the  conditions  there  are 
to  be  found  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  in  most  other  such 
institutions  in  every  State  in  the  Union.  For  that  reason  it  is 
not  necessary  that  I  name  it.  I  am  not  writing  an  expose  of 
the  three  hospitals  in  which  I  was  confined.  The  evils 
they  represent  are  almost  universal,  and  I  do  not  propose  to 
becloud  the  main  issue,  which  is  the  need  of  a  movement 
to  eliminate  these  evils  everywhere.  For  this  reason  and, 
in  some  instances,  for  charity's  sake,  I  suppress  the  names 
of  those  who  were  in  authority  over  me. 

The  institution  itself  was  well  situated.  Though  the 
view  was  a  restricted  one,  a  vast  expanse  of  lawn,  surrounded 
by  groups  of  trees  —  patches  of  primeval  forest  —  gave  the 
place  an  atmosphere  which  was  not  without  its  remedial 
value.  My  quarters  were  comfortable,  and,  after  a  little, 
I  adjusted  myself  to  my  new  environment.  A  description 
of  the  daily  routine  will,  I  believe,  serve  to  dispel  many  mis- 
taken ideas  regarding  the  life  led  by  the  inmates  of  such 
institutions. 

Breakfast  was  served  about  7.30  a.m.,  though  the  hour 
varied  somewhat  according  to  the  season  —  earlier  in  sum- 
mer and  later  in  winter.  In  the  spring,  summer,  and  fall, 
when  the  weather  was  favorable,  those  able  to  go  out  of  doors 
were  taken  after  breakfast  for  walks  within  the  grounds,  or 
were  allowed  to  roam  about  the  lawn  and  sit  under  the  trees, 
where  they  remained  for  an  hour  or  two  at  a  time.  Dinner 
was  usually  served  shortly  after  noon,  and  then  the  active 
patients  were  again  taken  out  of  doors,  where  they  remained 
an  hour  or  two  doing  much  as  they  pleased,  but  under  the 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  63 

eyes  of  attendants.  About  half -past  three  they  returned  to 
their  respective  wards,  there  to  remain  until  the  next  day  — 
except  those  who  cared  to  attend  the  religious  service  which 
was  held  almost  every  afternoon  in  an  endowed  chapel. 
Few  such  institutions  in  this  country  have  religious  services 
every  day.  But  Dr.  Theodore  B.  Hyslop,  Superintendent 
of  Bethlem  Royal  Hospital  (London,  England),  a  specialist 
in  neurology  and  in  the  treatment  of  mental  diseases,  goes 
so  far  as  to  say:  "Of  all  hygienic  measures  to  counteract 
disturbed  sleep,  depressed  spirits,  and  all  the  miserable 
sequels  of  a  distressed  mind  I  would  undoubtedly  give  the 
first  place  to  the  simple  habit  of  prayer." 

Preachers  of  the  gospel  should  appreciate  this  fact,  and  be 
oftener  seen  working  among  the  insane. 

In  all  institutions  those  confined  in  different  wards  go  to 
bed  at  different  hours.  The  patients  in  the  best  wards  re- 
tire at  nine  or  ten  o'clock.  Those  in  the  wards  where  more 
troublesome  cases  are  treated  go  to  bed  usually  at  seven  or 
eight  o'clock.  I,  while  undergoing  treatment,  have  retired 
at  all  hours,  so  that  I  am  in  the  better  position  to  describe 
the  mysteries  of  what  is,  in  a  way,  one  of  the  greatest  secret 
societies  in  the  world. 

I  soon  became  accustomed  to  the  rather  agreeable  rou- 
tine, and  began  to  enjoy  life  as  much  as  a  man  could  with  the 
cloud  of  death  hanging  over  him,  —  for  I  still  suffered  the 
constant  dread  of  being  removed  to  court,  to  prison,  and  to 
the  gallows  or  the  electric- chair.  But  my  living  was  hardly 
life;  yet,  had  I  not  been  burdened  with  the  delusions  which 
held  me  a  prisoner  of  the  police,  and  kept  me  a  stranger  to 
my  old  world,  I  should  have  been  able  to  enjoy  a  compara- 
tively happy  existence  in  spite  of  all. 

This  new  feeling  of  comparative  contentment  had  not 
been  brought  about  by  any  decided  improvement  in  health. 


64  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

It  was  due  directly  and  entirely  to  an  environment  more 
nearly  in  tune  with  my  ill-tuned  mind.  While  surrounded 
by  sane  people  my  mental  inferiority  had  been  pain- 
fully apparent  to  me,  as  well  as  to  others.  Here  a  feeling 
of  superiority  easily  asserted  itself,  for  many  of  my  asso- 
ciates were,  to  my  mind,  vastly  inferior  to  myself.  But  this 
stimulus  did  not  affect  me  at  once.  For  several  weeks  I 
believed  the  institution  to  be  peopled  by  detectives,  feigning 
insanity.  The  government  was  still  operating  the  "Third 
Degree,"  only  on  a  grander  scale.  Nevertheless,  I  did  soon 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  institution  was  what  it  pro- 
fessed to  be  —  still  cherishing  the  idea,  however,  that  cer- 
tain patients  and  attaches  were  detectives,  —  an  idea  which 
persisted  until  my  period  of  depression  came  to  an  end. 
From  June  nth,  1901,  when  I  first  arrived  at  this  hospital,  to 
August  30th,  1902,  when  the  active  and  troublesome  phase  of 
my  illness  began,  I  was  treated  with  consideration  by  doc- 
tors and  attendants  alike.  Fortunately,  in  all  hospitals  for 
the  insane,  patients  in  a  passive  condition  are  pretty  likely 
to  receive  kind  treatment. 

For  a  while  after  my  arrival  I  again  abandoned  my  new- 
found reading  habit.  But  as  I  became  accustomed  to  my 
surroundings  I  grew  bolder  and  resumed  my  devotion 
to  the  newspapers  and  to  such  books  as  were  at  hand.  There 
was  a  bookcase  in  the  ward,  filled  with  old  numbers  of 
standard  English  periodicals ;  among  them :  Westminster  Re- 
view, Edinburgh  Review,  London  Quarterly,  and  Blackwood's. 
There  were  also  copies  of  Harper's,  Scribner's  and  The  Atlan- 
tic Monthly,  dated  a  generation  or  more  before  my  first  read- 
ing days.  Indeed,  some  of  the  reviews  were  over  fifty  years 
old.  But  I  had  to  read  their  heavy  contents  or  go  without 
reading,  for  I  would  not  yet  ask  even  for  a  thing  I  desired. 
In  the  room  of  one  of  the  patients  were  thirty  or  forty  books 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  65 

belonging  to  him.  Time  and  again  I  walked  by  his  door  and 
cast  a  longing  glance  at  those  books,  which  at  first  I  had  not 
the  courage  to  ask  for  or  to  take.  But  during  the  summer, 
about  the  time  I  was  getting  desperate,  I  finally  managed  to 
summon  enough  courage  to  take  books  surreptitiously,  and,  I 
confess,  it  was  usually  while  the  owner  of  these  books  was  at- 
tending the  daily  service  in  the  chapel  that  his  Hbrary  became 
a  circulating  one. 

Though  this  institution,  unlike  most  institutions,  had  a 
library,  presented  and  endowed  by  a  person  interested  in 
the  work  that  was  being  done  there,  that  library,  which  was 
kept  in  an  adjoining  ward,  afforded  me  no  pleasure  until  I 
had  become  sane  enough  to  ask  for  favors.  Later  investi- 
gation has  convinced  me  that  the  libraries  in  existence 
in  hospitals  for  the  insane  are  not  made  the  most  of;  for  it 
frequently  happens  that  those  most  desirous  of  reading  are 
least  likely  to  ask  for  books.  Instead  of  being  kept  in 
one  ward  books  should  be  distributed  and  re-distributed 
throughout  the  several  wards.  The  slight  chance  of  their 
being  damaged  or  destroyed  is  more  than  offset  by  the  good 
they  may  do. 

The  contents  of  the  books  I  read  made  perhaps  more  of 
an  impression  on  my  memory  than  most  books  make  on  the 
minds  of  normal  readers.  To  assure  myself  of  the  fact  I 
have  since  re-read  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  and  I  recognize 
it  as  an  old  friend.  The  first  part  of  the  story,  however, 
wherein  Hawthorne  describes  his  work  as  a  Custom  House 
official  and  portrays  his  literary  personality,  seems  to  have 
made  scarcely  any  impression.  This  I  attribute  to  my  utter 
lack  of  literary  interest  at  that  time  in  writers  and  their 
methods.  I  then  had  no  desire  to  write  a  book,  or  any 
thought  of  ever  doing  so.  Not  until  the  day  I  regained  my 
reason,  were  my  literary  ambitions  bom. 

6 


66  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

Letters  I  looked  upon  with  suspicion.  I  never  read  them 
at  the  time  they  were  received.  I  would  not  even  open 
them;  but  generally,  after  a  week  or  sometimes  a  month,  I 
would  secretly  open  and  read  them  —  forgeries  of  the 
detectives. 

I  still  refused  to  speak,  and  exhibited  physical  activity 
only  when  the  patients  were  taken  out  of  doors.  For  hours 
I  would  sit  reading  books  or  papers,  or  apparently  doing 
nothing.  But  my  mind  was  in  an  active  state  and  very 
sensitive.  As  the  event  proved,  everything  done  or  said 
within  the  range  of  my  senses  was  making  indelible  impres- 
sions, though  these  at  the  time  were  frequently  of  such  a  char- 
acter that  I  experienced  great  difficulty  in  trying  to  recall 
incidents  which  I  thought  I  might  find  useful  at  the  time  of 
my  appearance  in  court. 

My  ankles  had  not  regained  anything  like  their  former 
strength.  It  hurt  to  walk.  For  months  I  continued  to  go 
flat-footed.  I  could  not  sustain  my  weight  with  heels  lifted 
from  the  floor.  In  going  down  stairs  I  had  to  place  my 
insteps  on  the  edge  of  each  step,  or  go  one  step  at  a  time, 
like  a  child.  Believing  that  the  detectives  were  pampering 
me  into  prime  condition,  as  a  butcher  fattens  a  beast 
for  slaughter,  I  deliberately  made  myself  out  much  weaker 
than  I  really  was;  and  not  a  little  of  my  inactivity  was  due 
to  a  desire  to  prolong  my  fairly  comfortable  existence,  by 
deferring  as  long  as  possible  the  day  of  trial  and  conspicuous 
disgrace. 

But  my  mode  of  living  was  not  without  its  distressing 
incidents.  Whenever  the  attendants  were  wanted  at  the 
office,  an  electric  bell  was  rung.  During  the  fourteen  months 
that  I  remained  in  this  hospital  in  a  depressed  condition, 
the  bell  in  my  ward  rang  several  hundred  times.  Never 
did  it  fail  to  send  through  me  a  mild  shock  of  terror,  for  I 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  67 

imagined  that  at  last  the  hour  had  struck  for  my  transporta- 
tion to  the  scene  of  trial.  Relatives  and  friends  would  be 
brought  to  the  ward  —  heralded,  of  course,  by  a  warning 
bell  —  and  short  interviews  would  be  held  in  my  room,  dur- 
ing which  the  visitors  had  to  do  all  the  talking.  My  eldest 
brother,  whom  I  shall  refer  to  hereafter  as  my  conservator, 
called  often.  He  seldom  failed  to  use  one  phrase  which 
annoyed  and  disturbed  me. 

"You  are  looking  better  and  getting  stronger,"  he  would 
say.     "We  shall  straighten  you  out  yet." 

To  be  "straightened  out,"  was  a  phrase  which  had  a  cer- 
tain sinister  ambiguity.  It  might  refer  to  the  end  of  the 
hangman's  rope,  or  to  a  fatal  electric  shock.  It  would  of 
course  be  difhcult  to  avoid  all  ambiguity  of  speech  in  talking 
to  one  afflicted  with  delusions  of  persecution,  but  such  care 
as  can  be  exercised  would  contribute  to  the  patient's  peace 
of  mind. 

I  preferred  to  be  let  alone  and  the  assistant  physician  in 
charge  of  my  case,  after  several  ineffectual  attempts  to  en- 
gage me  in  conversation,  humored  my  persistent  taciturnity. 
For  over  a  year  nothing  passed  between  us  further  than  an 
occasional  conventional  salutation.  Subsequent  events  have 
led  me  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  this  policy,  and  to  infer  that 
had  my  timid  confidence  once  been  gained  some  of  my  delu- 
sions might  have  been  imdermined,  if  not  talked  to  death. 
As  I  finally  seduced  my  Unreason  into  at  least  a  semblance 
of  sanity,  by  supplying  myself  with  desired  proofs  as  to  the 
genuineness  of  relatives  and  friends,  is  it  not  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  similar  proofs,  cleverly  offered  by  others,  might 
have  produced  the  same  result  earlier?  Among  psychi- 
atrists I  find  the  opinion  that  it  is  only  at  an  advanced  stage 
of  recuperation  that  such  an  expedient  would  have  any 
chance  of  success;  and  that  even  in  the  event  of  success,  the 


68  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

time  so  saved  would  scarcely  be  worth  considering.  Never- 
theless, instead  of  assuming  that  delusions  must  correct 
themselves  —  if  they  are  ever  to  be  corrected  —  physicians 
(more  scrupulously,  I  think,  than  they  do)  might  give  the 
patient  the  benefit  of  every  doubt,  and  exercise  their  skill 
from  time  to  time  to  ascertain,  if  nothing  more,  whether  or 
not  he  exhibits  signs  of  returning  sanity.  Of  course,  I  will 
not  presume  to  combat  the  question  pathologically.  I  am 
only  submitting  for  the  consideration  of  psychiatrists  an 
impression  gained  from  the  inside. 

For  one  year  no  further  attention  was  paid  to  me  than  to 
see  that  I  had  three  meals  a  day,  the  requisite  number  of 
baths,  and  a  sufficient  amount  of  exercise.  I  was,  however, 
occasionally  urged  by  an  attendant  to  write  a  letter  to  some 
relative,  but  that,  of  course,  I  refused  to  do.  As  I  shall  have 
many  hard  things  to  say  about  attendants  in  general,  I  take 
pleasure  in  testifying  that,  so  long  as  I  remained  in  a  pas- 
sive condition,  those  at  this  institution  were  kind,  and  at 
times  even  thoughtful.  But  so  soon  as  I  regained,  in  a  large 
measure,  my  reason,  and  began  to  talk,  diplomatic  relations 
with  doctors  and  attendants  became  so  strained  that  war 
promptly  ensued. 

It  was  no  doubt  upon  the  gradual  but  sure  improvement 
in  my  physical  condition  that  the  doctors  were  relying  for 
my  eventual  salvation.  They  were  not  without  some  war- 
rant for  this.  In  a  way  I  had  become  less  suspicious,  but 
my  increased  confidence  was  due  as  much  to  an  increasing 
indifference  to  my  fate  as  to  an  improvement  in  health. 
And  there  were  other  signs  of  improved  mental  vigor.  I 
was  still  watchful,  however,  for  a  chance  to  end  my  life, 
and  had  I  not  largely  regained  my  reason  as  soon  as  I  did, 
I  do  not  doubt  that  my  choice  of  evils  would  have  found  tragic 
expression  in  an  overt  act. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  69 

Having  convinced  myself  that  most  of  my  associates  were 
really  insane,  and  therefore  (as  I  believed)  disqualified  as 
competent  witnesses  in  a  court  of  law,  I  would  occasionally 
engage  in  conversation  with  a  few  whose  evident  incompe- 
tency seemed  to  make  them  safe  confidants.  One,  a  man 
who  during  his  life  had  suffered  several  nervous  break- 
downs, more  like  acute  nervous  prostration  than  insanity, 
took  a  very  evident  interest  in  me  and  persisted  in  talking  to 
me,  often  much  against  my  will.  His  persistent  inquisitive- 
ness  seemed  to  support  his  own  statement  that  he  had  for- 
merly been  a  successful  life-insurance  solicitor.  He  finally 
gained  my  confidence  to  such  a  degree  that  months  before  I 
finally  began  to  talk  to  others  I  permitted  myself  to  con- 
verse frequently  with  him  —  but  only  when  we  were  so 
situated  as  to  escape  observation.  I  would  talk  to  him  on 
almost  any  subject  except  myself.  At  length,  however,  his 
admirable  persistence  overcame  my  reticence.  During  a 
conversation  held  in  June,  1902,  he  abruptly  said,  "Why 
you  are  kept  here  I  cannot  understand.  Apparently  you 
are  as  sane  as  any  one.  You  have  never  made  any  but 
sensible  remarks  to  me."  Now  for  weeks  I  had  been  waiting 
for  a  chance  to  tell  this  man  my  very  thoughts.  I  had  come 
to  believe  him  a  true  friend  who  would  not  betray  me. 

"If  I  should  tell  you  some  things  which  you  apparently 
don't  know,  you  would  understand  why  I  am  held  here," 
said  I. 

"Well,  tell  me,"  he  urged. 

"Will  you  promise  not  to  repeat  my  statements  to  any  one 
else?" 

"I  promise  not  to  say  a  word." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "you  have  seen  certain  persons  who  have 
come  here,  claiming  to  be  relatives  of  mine." 

"Yes,  and  they  are  your  relatives,  aren't  they?" 


70  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

"They  look  like  my  relatives,  but  they're  not,"  was 
my  reply. 

My  inquisitive  friend  laughed  aloud.  "Well,"  said  he, 
"if  you  mean  that,  I  shall  have  to  take  back  what  I  just 
said.  You  are  really  the  craziest  person  I  have  ever  met, 
and  I  have  met  several." 

"You  will  think  differently  some  day,"  said  I;  for  I  be- 
lieved that  when  my  trial  should  occur  he  would  appreciate 
the  significance  of  my  statement.  I  did  not  tell  him  that  I 
believed  these  callers  to  be  detectives;  nor  did  I  hint  that  I 
thought  myself  in  the  hands  of  the  police. 

Meanwhile,  during  July  and  August,  1902,  I  redoubled 
my  activity  in  devising  suicidal  schemes;  for  I  now  thought 
my  physical  condition  satisfactory  to  my  enemies,  and  was 
sure  that  my  trial  could  not  be  postponed  beyond  the  next 
opening  of  the  courts  in  September.  I  even  went  so  far  as  to 
talk  to  one  of  the  attendants,  a  medical  student,  who,  during 
the  summer,  worked  as  an  attendant  at  the  hospital.  I 
approached  him  artfully.  First  I  asked  him  to  procure 
from  the  library  for  me  "The  Scarlet  Letter,"  "The  House  of 
Seven  Gables,"  and  other  such  books;  then  I  talked  med- 
icine and  finally  asked  him  to  lend  me  a  text-book  on  anat- 
omy which  I  knew  he  had  in  his  possession.  This  he  did, 
cautioning  me  not  to  let  any  one  know  that  he  had  done  so. 
The  book  once  secured,  I  lost  no  time  in  examining  that 
part  which  described  the  heart,  its  functions,  and  especially 
its  exact  location  in  the  body.  I  had  scarcely  begun  to  read 
when  the  attendant  returned  and  took  the  book  from 
me,  offering  as  his  reason  that,  as  an  attendant,  he  had  no 
right  to  give  me  a  medical  work.  I  have  often  wondered 
since  whether  this  was  an  intervention  of  Providence. 

As  is  usual  in  institutions  for  the  insane,  all  knives,  forks, 
and  other  articles,  which  might  be  used  by  a  patient  for 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  71 

an  insane  purpose,  were  counted  by  the  attendants  after 
each  meal.  This  I  knew,  and  it  had  a  deterrent  effect.  I 
dared  not  take  one.  Though  I  might  at  any  time  during 
the  night  have  hanged  myself,  that  method  did  not  appeal 
to  me,  and  I  kept  it  in  mind  only  as  a  last  resort.  To  get 
possession  of  some  sharp  dagger-like  instrument  which  I 
could  plunge  into  my  heart  at  a  moment's  notice  —  this  was 
my  consuming  desire.  With  such  a  weapon  I  felt  that  I 
could,  when  the  crisis  came,  rob  the  detectives  of  their  vic- 
tory. During  the  summer  months  an  employee  spent  his 
entire  time  driving  a  large  lawn-mower  over  the  grounds. 
This  when  not  in  use  was  often  left  outdoors.  Upon  it  was 
a  square  wooden  box,  containing  certain  necessary  tools, 
among  them  a  sharp,  spike-like  instrument,  used  to  clean  the 
oil-holes  when  they  had  become  clogged.  This  bit  of  steel 
was  five  or  six  inches  long,  and  was  shaped  like  a  pencil. 
For  at  least  three  months  prior  to  the  moment  of  my  restored 
reason  I  seldom  went  out  of  doors  that  I  did  not  go  with  the 
intention  of  purloining  that  steel  spike.  I  intended  then  to 
keep  it  in  my  room  against  the  day  of  my  anticipated  trans- 
fer to  jail. 

It  was  now  that  my  delusions  protected  me  from  the  very 
fate  they  had  induced  me  to  court.  For  had  I  not  believed 
that  the  eye  of  a  detective  was  on  me  every  moment,  I  could 
have  taken  that  spike  a  score  of  times.  Often  when  it  was 
not  in  use  I  walked  to  the  lawn-mower  and  even  laid  my 
hand  upon  the  tool-box.  But  I  dared  not  open  it.  My 
feelings  were  much  like  those  of  Pandora  about  a  certain 
other  box.  In  my  case,  however,  the  box  upon  which  I 
looked  with  longing  had  Hope  without,  and  not  within. 
Instinctively,  perhaps,  I  realized  this,  for  I  did  not  lift 
the  lid. 

One  day,  as  the  patients  were  returning  to  their  wards,  I 


72  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

saw,  lying  directly  in  my  path  (I  could  even  now  point  out 
the  spot),  the  coveted  weapon.  Never  have  I  seen  anything 
that  I  more  desired.  To  have  stooped  and  picked  it  up 
without  detection  would  have  been  easy;  and  had  I  known, 
as  I  know  now,  that  it  had  been  carelessly  dropped,  nothing 
could  have  prevented  me  from  doing  so  and  perhaps  using 
it  with  fatal  effect.  But  I  believed  it  had  been  placed  there 
deliberately  and  as  a  test,  by  those  who  had  divined  my 
suicidal  purpose.  The  eye  of  the  imagined  detective,  which, 
I  am  inclined  to  believe,  and  like  to  believe,  was  the  eye  of 
the  real  God,  was  upon  me;  and  though  I  stepped  directly 
over  it  I  did  not  pick  up  that  thing  of  death. 


(^ 


XI 

When  I  had  decided  that  my  chance  for  securing  the  little 
stiletto-spike  was  very  uncertain,  I  a^  once  busied  myself 
with  plans  which  were  designed  to  bring  about  my  death 
by  drowning.  There  was  in  the  ward  a  large  bath-tub.  Ac- 
cess to  it  could  be  had  at  any  time,  except  between  the  hour 
of  nine  at  night  (when  the  patients  were  locked  in  their 
rooms)  and  the  following  morning.  How  to  make  it  acces- 
sible in  those  dark  hours  was  the  problem  which  confronted 
me.  The  attendant  in  charge  was  supposed  to  see  that 
each  patient  was  in  his  room  when  the  door  was  locked.  As 
it  rarely  happened  that  the  patients  were  not  in  their  rooms  at 
the  appointed  time,  the  attendants  naturally  grew  careless,  and 
often  locked  a  door  without  looking  in.  The  "good  night" 
of  the  attendant,  a  salutation  usually  devoid  of  sentiment, 
might,  or  might  not,  elicit  a  response,  and  the  absence  of  a 
response  would  not  tend  to  arouse  suspicion  —  especially 
in  a  case  like  mine,  for  I  would  sometimes  say  "good  night," 
but  more  often  not. 

My  simple  and  easy  plan  was  to  hide  behind  a  piece  of 
furniture  in  the  corridor  and  there  remain  until  the  attend- 
ant had  locked  the  doors  of  the  rooms  and  retired.  I 
had  even  advanced  so  far  in  my  plan  as  to  select  a  con- 
venient place.  This  was  a  nook  within  twenty  feet  of  my 
own  room.  Should  the  attendant,  when  about  to  lock  the 
door,  discover  my  absence,  I  should,  of  course,  immediately 
reveal  my  hiding-place  by  leaving  it;  and  it  would  have  been 
an  easy  matter  to  convince  him  that  I  had  done  the  thing  as  a 

73 


74  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF 

test  of  his  own  vigilance.  On  the  other  hand,  if  I  escaped 
discovery.  I  should  then  have  nine  hours  at  my  disposal 
with  little  fear  of  interruption.  True,  the  night-watch  passed 
through  the  ward  once  every  hour.  But  death  by  drown- 
ing requires  a  time  no  longer  than  that  necessary  to  boil  an 
egg.  I  had  even  calculated  how  long  it  would  take  to  fill 
the  tub  with  water.  To  make  sure  of  a  fatal  result,  I  had 
secreted  a  piece  of  wire  which  I  intended  so  to  use  that  my 
head,  once  imder  water,  could  by  no  possibility  be  raised 
above  the  surface  in  the  inevitable  struggle. 

I  have  said  that  I  did  not  desire  death;  nor  did  I.  Had 
the  supposed  detectives  been  able  to  convince  me  that  they 
would  keep  their  word,  I  would  willingly  have  signed  an 
agreement  stipulating  on  my  side  that  I  must  live  the  rest 
of  my  life  as  an  inmate  of  an  asylum,  and  on  theirs  that  I 
should  never  undergo  a  trial  for  crime. 

Fortunately  during  these  dismal  preparations  I  had  not 
lost  interest  in  other  schemes  which  probably  saved  my  life. 
In  these  the  fellow-patient  who  had  won  my  confidence 
played  the  role  of  my  ov^^n  private  detective.  That  he  and 
I  could  defeat  the  combined  forces  of  the  Nation  hardly 
seemed  probable,  but  the  seeming  impossibihty  of  so  doing 
only  lent  zest  to  the  undertaking.  My  friend,  who,  of  course, 
did  not  reahze  that  he  was  engaged  in  combat  with  the  Secret 
Service,  was  allowed  to  go  where  he  pleased  within  the  limits 
of  the  city  where  the  hospital  was  situated.  Accordingly 
I  determined  to  enlist  his  services.  It  was  during  July 
that,  at  my  suggestion,  he  tried  to  procure  copies  of  certain 
New  Haven  newspapers,  of  the  date  of  my  attempted  suicide 
and  the  several  dates  immediately  following.  My  purpose 
was  to  learn  what  motive  had  been  ascribed  to  my  suicidal 
attempt.  I  felt  sure  that  they  would  contain  at  least  hints 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  criminal  charges  against  me.    But  this 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  75 

purpose  I  did  not  disclose  to  my  friend.  In  due  time  he  re- 
ported that  no  copies  for  the  given  dates  were  to  be  had. 
So  that  quest  proved  fruitless,  and  I  attributed  the  failure  to 
the  superior  strategy  of  the  enemy. 

Meanwhile,  my  friend  had  not  desisted  from  his  attempt 
to  convince  me  that  my  apparent  relatives  were  not  spurious ; 
and  one  day  I  said  to  him:  "If  my  relatives  still  live  in  New 
Haven,  their  addresses  must  be  in  the  latest  New  Haven 
Directory.  Here  is  a  hst  containing  the  names  and  former 
addresses  of  my  father,  brother,  and  uncle.  These  were 
their  addresses  in  1900.  To-morrow,  when  you  go  out, 
please  see  whether  they  appear  in  the  New  Haven  Directory 
for  1902,  These  persons  who  present  themselves  to  me  as 
relatives  pretend  to  live  at  these  addresses.  If  they  speak 
the  truth,  the  1902  Directory  will  corroborate  them.  I  will 
then  have  hope  that  a  letter  sent  to  any  one  of  these  ad- 
dresses will  reach  relatives,  —  and  surely  some  attention 
will  be  paid  to  it." 

The  next  day,  which  was  August  27th,  my  own  good  detec- 
tive went  to  a  local  pubHshing  house  where  directories  of 
the  several  important  cities  throughout  the  country  may  be 
consulted.  Shortly  after  he  went  out  upon  this  errand,  my 
conservator  appeared.  He  found  me  walking  about  the  lawn. 
At  his  suggestion  we  sat  down.  Bold  in  the  assurance  that 
I  could  kill  myself  before  the  crisis  came,  I  talked  with  him 
freely,  replying  to  many  of  his  questions  and  asking  several. 
My  conservator,  who  had  never  fully  understood  that  I  de- 
nied his  identity,  commented  with  manifest  pleasure  on  my 
new-found  readiness  to  talk.  He  would  have  been  less 
pleased,  however,  had  he  been  able  to  read  my  mind. 

Shortly  after  my  conservator's  departure  my  fellow-patient 
returned  and  informed  me  that  the  latest  New  Haven  direc- 
tory contained  the  names  and  addresses  I  had  given  him. 


76  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

This  information,  though  it  did  not  prove  that  my  morn- 
ing caller  was  no  detective,  did  convince  me  that  my  real 
brother  still  lived  where  he  did  when  I  left  New  Haven, 
two  years  earlier.  At  this  time  my  physical  senses  were  less 
perverted  than  they  had  been  previously,  and  in  that  fact 
lay  my  salvation.  Now  that  my  senses  no  longer  lied  to  me, 
my  returning  reason  enabled  me  to  construct  the  ingenious 
scheme  which,  I  believe,  saved  my  life ;  for,  had  I  not  largely 
regained  my  reason  when  I  did,  I  am  incHned  to  believe  that 
my  distraught  mind  would  have  destroyed  itself  and  me,  be- 
fore it  could  have  been  restored  by  the  slow  process  of  re- 
turning health. 

A  few  hours  after  my  private  detective  had  given  me  the 
information  I  so  much  desired,  I  wrote  my  first  letter  in 
twenty-six  months.  As  letters  go  it  is  in  a  class  by 
itself.  I  dared  not  ask  for  ink,  so  I  wrote  with  a  lead  pencil. 
Another  fellow-patient  in  whom  I  had  confidence,  at  my 
request,  addressed  the  envelope;  but  he  was  not  in  the  secret 
of  its  contents.  This  was  an  added  precaution,  for  I  thought 
the  Secret  Service  men  might  have  found  out  that  I  had  a 
detective  of  my  own  and  would  confiscate  any  letters  ad- 
dressed by  him  or  me.  The  next  morning,  my  "detective" 
mailed  the  letter.  That  letter  I  still  have,  and  I  treasure 
it  as  any  innocent  man  condemned  to  death  would  treasure 
a  pardon  or  reprieve.  It  should  convince  the  reader  that 
sometimes  an  insane  man  can  think  and  write  clearly.  An 
exact  copy  of  this  —  the  most  important  letter  I  ever  expect 
to  be  called  upon  to  write  —  is  here  appended : 

T-.        ^  August  29,  1902. 

Dear  George: 

On  last  Wednesday  morning  a  person  who  claimed  to  be  George  M.  Beers 
of  New  Haven,  Ct.,  clerk  in  the  Director's  Office  of  the  Shefl&eld  Scientific 
School  and  a  brother  of  mine,  called  to  see  me. 

Perhaps  what  he  said  was  true,  but  after  the  events  of  the  last  two  years 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  77 

I  find  myself  inclined  to  doubt  the  truth  of  everything  that  is  told  me.  He 
said  that  he  would  come  and  see  me  again  sometime  next  week,  and  I  am 
sending  you  this  letter  in  order  that  you  may  bring  it  with  you  as  a  passport, 
provided  you  are  the  one  who  was  here  on  Wednesday. 

If  you  did  not  call  as  stated  please  say  nothing  about  this  letter  to  any- 
one, and  when  your  double  arrives,  I'll  tell  him  what  I  think  of  him.  Would 
send  other  messages,  but  while  things  seem  as  they  do  at  present  it  is  im- 
possible.   Have  had  some  one  else  address  envelope  for  fear  letter  might  be 

held  up  on  the  way.  ,^ 

^  Yours, 

Clifford  W.  B. 

Though  I  felt  reasonably  confident  that  this  message 
would  reach  my  brother,  I  was  by  no  means  certain.  I  was 
sure,  however,  that,  should  he  receive  it,  under  no  circum- 
stances would  he  turn  it  over  to  any  one  hostile  to  myself. 
When  I  wrote  the  words:  "Dear  George,"  my  feeling  was 
much  like  that  of  a  child  who  sends  a  letter  to  Santa  Claus 
after  his  faith  in  the  existence  of  Santa  Claus  has  been  shaken. 
Like  the  sceptical  child,  I  felt  there  was  nothing  to  lose,  but 
everything  to  gain.  "Yours"  fully  expressed  such  affection 
for  relatives  as  I  was  then  capable  of,  —  for  the  belief  that 
I  had  disgraced,  perhaps  destroyed,  my  family  prompted 
me  to  forbear  to  use  the  family  name  in  the  signature. 

The  thought  that  I  might  soon  get  in  touch  with  my  old 
world  did  not  excite  me.  I  had  not  much  faith  any- 
way that  I  was  to  re-establish  former  relations,  and  what 
little  faith  I  had  was  almost  dissipated  on  the  morning  of 
August  30th,  1902,  when  a  short  message,  written  on  a 
slip  of  paper,  reached  me  by  the  hand  of  an  attendant. 
It  informed  me  that  my  brother  would  call  that  afternoon. 
I  thought  it  a  lie.  I  felt  that  any  brother  of  mine  would 
have  taken  the  pains  to  send  a  letter  in  reply  to  the  first  I 
had  written  him  in  over  two  years.  The  thought  that  there 
had  not  been  time  for  him  to  do  so  and  that  this  message 
must  have  arrived  by  telephone  did  not  then  occur  to  me. 


78  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

What  I  believed  was  that  my  own  letter  had  been  confis- 
cated. I  asked  one  of  the  doctors  to  swear  on  his  honor 
that  it  really  was  my  own  brother  who  was  coming  to  see 
me.  He  did  so  swear,  and  this  may  have  diminished  my 
first  doubt  somewhat,  but  not  much,  for  abnormal  suspicion 
robbed  all  men  in  my  sight  of  whatever  honor  they  may 
have  had. 

The  thirtieth  of  the  month  was  what  might  he  called  a 
perfect  June  day  in  August.  In  the  afternoon,  as  usual,  the 
patients  were  taken  out  of  doors,  I  among  them.  I  wan- 
dered about  the  lawn,  and  cast  frequent  and  expectant 
glances  toward  the  gate,  through  which  I  believed  my  antici- 
pated visitor  would  soon  pass.  In  less  than  an  hour  he 
appeared.  I  first  caught  sight  of  him  about  three  hundred 
feet  away,  and,  impelled  more  by  curiosity  than  hope,  I 
advanced  to  meet  him.  "I  wonder  what  the  lie  will  be  this 
time,"  was  the  gist  of  my  thoughts. 

The  person  approaching  me  was  indeed  the  counterpart  of 
my  brother  as  I  remembered  him.  Yet  he  was  no  more  my 
brother  than  he  had  been  at  any  time  during  the  preceding 
two  years.  He  was  still  a  detective.  Such  he  was  when  I 
shook  his  hand.  As  soon  as  that  ceremony  was  over  he 
drew  forth  a  leather  pocket-book.  I  instantly  recognized 
it  as  one  I  myself  had  carried  for  several  years  prior  to 
the  time  I  was  taken  ill  in  1900.  It  was  from  this  that  he 
took  my  recent  letter. 

"Here's  my  passport,"  said  he. 

"It's  a  good  thing  you  brought  it,"  said  I  coolly,  as  I 
glanced  at  it  and  again  shook  his  hand  —  this  time  the  hand 
of  my  own  brother. 

"Don't  you  want  to  read  it?"  he  asked. 

"There  is  no  need  of  that,"  was  my  reply.  "I  am  con- 
vinced." 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  79 

After  my  long  journey  of  exploration  in  the  jungle  of  a 
tangled  imagination,  a  journey  which  finally  ended  in  my 
finding  the  person  for  whom  I  had  long  searched,  my  be- 
havior differed  very  Httle  from  that  of  a  great  explorer  who, 
after  a  perilous  trip  through  real  jungles,  found  the  man  he 
sought  and,  coolly,  grasping  his  hand,  greeted  him  with  a 
now  historic  remark. 

This  was  the  culminating  moment  of  my  gradual  re-ad- 
justment. The  molecules  of  my  mental  magnet  had  at  last 
turned  in  the  direction  of  right  thinking.  In  a  word, 
my  mind  had  found  itself.  That  this  apparently  instanta- 
neous return  to  reason  was  for  me  an  epoch-making  event, 
no  one  will  deny.  I  may  be  pardoned,  then,  if  I  dwell 
upon  it  at  length.  The  dividing  line  between  sanity  and  in- 
sanity has  ever  been  a  topic  for  discussion.  In  my  own  case 
I  believe  that  I  can  safely  statejhatjdi^e  elapse^  time  between 
a  condition  of  absolute  insanity  and  comparative  sanity  was 
scarcely  appreciable.  This  statement  squares  with  the 
psychological  fact  that  it  takes  about  one  tenth  of  a 
second  for  the  mind  to  form  a  perception.  The  very  instant 
I  caught  sight  of  my  letter  in  the  hands  of  my  brother,  all 
was  changed.  The  thousands  of  false  impressions  recorded 
during  the  seven  hundred  and  ninety-eight  days  of  my  de- 
pressed state  seemed  at  once  to  correct  themselves.  Un- 
truth became  Truth.  My  old  world  was  again  mine.  •, 
That  gigantic  web  woven  by  an  indefatigable  yet  tired 
imagination,  I  immediately  recognized  as  a  snare  of  delu-  C 
sions,  in  which  I  had  all  but  hopelessly  entangled  myself.  \ 
That  the  Gordian  loiot  of  mental  torture  should  be  cut 
and  swept  away  by  the  mere  glance  of  a  willing  eye  is 
like  a  miracle;  but  not  a  few  insane  persons  recover  their 
reason  —  or,  more  scientifically  expressed,  reach  the  culmi- 
nation of  their  hitherto  invisible  process  of  re-adjustment  — 


8o  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

in  what  might  be  termed  a  flash  of  divine  enlightenment, 
though  very  few  have  documentary  evidence  to  prove  their 
instantaneous  return  to  Hfe. 

My  memory  during  this  phase  might  be  Hkened  to  a  photo- 
graphic film,  seven  hundred  and  ninety-eight  days  long. 
Each  impression  seems  to  have  been  made  in  a  negative  way 
and  then,  in  a  fraction  of  a  second,  miraculously  developed 
and  made  positive.  Of  hundreds  of  impressions  made  dur- 
ing that  depressed  period  I  had  not  before  been  conscious, 
but  from  the  moment  I  regained  my  reason  they  have  stood 
out  vividly.  Not  only  so,  but  all  impressions  gathered  during 
earher  years  have  done  Hkewise.  Since  that  August  30th, 
which  I  regard  as  my  second  birthday  (my  first  was  on  the 
30th  of  another  month)  my  mind  has  exhibited  quahties 
which,  prior  to  that  time,  were  so  latent  as  to  be  scarcely 
distinguishable.  As  a  result,  I  find  myself  able  to  do 
desirable  things  I  never  before  dreamed  of  doing  —  the 
writing  of  this  book  is  one  of  them. 

Yet  had  I  failed  to  convince  myself  on  August  30th,  when 
my  brother  came  to  see  me,  that  he  was  no  spy,  I  am  almost 
sure  that  I  should  have  compassed  my  own  destruction  within 
the  following  ten  days,  for  the  next  month,  I  believed,  was  the 
fatal  one  of  opening  courts.  It  was  death  by  drowning  that 
impended.  And  I  find  it  peculiarly  appropriate  to  Hken  my 
salvation  itself  to  a  prolonged  process  of  drowning.  Thou- 
sands of  minutes  of  the  seven  hundred  and  ninety-eight  days 
—  and  there  were  over  one  milHon  of  them,  during  which  I 
had  been  borne  down  by  intolerably  burdensome  delusions  — 
were,  I  imagine,  much  Hke  the  last  minutes  of  consciousness 
experienced  by  persons  who  drown.  Many  who  have 
narrowly  escaped  this  fate  can  testify  to  the  vividness 
with  which  good  and  bad  impressions  of  their  entire  life 
rush  through  their  confused  minds,  and  hold  them  in  a  grip 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  8l 

of  terror  until  a  kind  unconsciousness  envelopes  them.  Such 
had  been  many  of  my  moments.  But  the  only  unconscious- 
ness which  had  deadened  my  sensibilities  during  these  two 
despondent  years  was  the  semi-unconsciousness  of  sleep  it- 
self. Though  I  slept  well  most  of  the  time,  mine  was  seldom 
a  dreamless  sleep.  Many  of  my  dreams  were,  if  anything, 
harder  to  bear  than  my  delusions  of  the  day,  for  what  little 
reason  I  had  was  absolutely  suspended  in  sleep.  Almost 
every  night  my  brain  was  at  battledore  and  shuttlecock  with 
weird  thoughts.  And  if  not  all  my  dreams  were  terrifying, 
this  fact  seemed  to  be  only  because  a  perverted  and  perverse 
Reason,  in  order  that  its  possessor  might  not  lose  the  capac- 
ity for  suffering,  knew  how  to  keep  Hope  alive  with  visions 
which  suppHed  the  contrast  necessary  for  keen  appreciation. 
^  No  man  can  be  bom  again,  but  I  believe  I  came  as  near 
'  it  as  ever  a  man  did.  To  leave  behind  what  was  in  reality  a 
Hell,  and,  in  less  than  one  second,  have  this  good  green  earth 
revealed  in  more  glory  than  most  men  ever  see  it  in,  was  a 
compensating  privilege  which  makes  me  feel  that  my  suffer- 
ing was  distinctly  worth  while.  This  statement  will  no 
doubt  seem  extravagant  to  those  who  dread  insanity;  but 
those  who  appreciate  what  a  privilege  it  is  to  be  placed  in  a 
position  to  do  great  good,  will,  I  am  sure,  credit  me  with 
sincerity.  For  have  I  not  before  me  a  field  of  philanthropy 
in  which  to  work  —  a  field  which,  even  in  this  altruistic 
age,  is  practically  untouched  ? 

I  have  already  described  the  peculiar  sensation  which 
assailed  me  when,  in  June,  1900,  I  lost  my  reason.  At  that 
time  my  brain  felt  as  though  pricked  by  a  milHon  needles  at 
white  heat.  On  this  August  30th,  1902,  shortly  after  regain- 
ing my  reason,  I  had  another  most  distinct  sensation  in  the 
brain.  It  started  under  my  brow  and  gradually  spread  until 
the  entire  surface  was  affected.  The  throes  of  a  dying  Rea- 
7 


82  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

son  had  been  torture.  The  sensations  felt  as  my  dead  Reason 
was  reborn  were  delightful.  It  seemed  as  though  the  re- 
freshing breath  of  some  kind  Goddess  of  Wisdom  were  being 
gently  blown  against  the  surface  of  my  brain.  It  was  a 
sensation  not  unlike  that  produced  by  a  menthol  pencil 
rubbed  ever  so  gently  over  a  fevered  brow.  So  delicate,  so 
crisp  and  exhilarating  was  it  that  words  fail  me  in  my  at- 
tempt to  describe  it.  Doctors  have  it,  in  theory  at  least, 
that  my  depressed  condition  had  been  caused  by  a  defective 
circulation  of  blood  in  the  brain.  The  elated  phase  of  my 
illness,  which  immediately  followed,  was,  on  the  other  hand, 
due  to  an  over-stimulation  of  the  brain-cells,  caused  by  an 
intoxicating  supply  of  blood  vouchsafed  by  an  abnormally 
joyous  heart.  Few,  if  any  experiences,  can  be  more  dehghtful 
than  that  which  followed.  If  the  exaltation  produced  by 
some  drugs  is  anything  Hke  it,  I  can  easily  understand  how 
and  why  certain  pernicious  habits  enslave  those  who  contract 
them.  For  me,  however,  this  experience  was  liberation, 
not  enslavement. 


XII 

After  two  years  of  silence  I  found  it  no  easy  matter  to 
carry  on  with  my  brother  a  sustained  conversation.  So  weak 
were  my  vocal  cords  from  lack  of  use  that  every  few  minutes 
I  must  either  rest  or  whisper.  And,  upon  trying,  I  found 
myself  unable  to  whistle,  notwithstanding  the  popular  belief, 
drawn  from  vague  memories  of  small-boyhood,  that  this  art 
is  instinctive.  Those  who  all  their  lives  have  talked  at 
will  cannot  possibly  appreciate  the  enjoyment  I  found  in 
using  my  regained  power  of  speech.  Reluctantly  I  returned 
to  the  ward;  but  not  until  my  brother  had  left  for  home, 
laden  with  so  much  of  my  conversation  that  it  took  most  of 
his  leisure  for  the  next  two  days  to  tell  the  family  what  I 
had  said  in  two  hours. 

During  the  first  few  hours  I  seemed  virtually  normal. 
I  had  none  of  the  delusions  which  had  previously  oppressed 
me;  nor  had  I  yet  developed  any  of  the  expansive  ideas,  or 
delusions  of  grandeur,  which  soon  began  to  crowd  in  upon 
me.  So  normal  did  I  appear  while  talking  to  my  brother 
that  he  thought  I  should  be  able  to  return  home  in  a  few 
weeks;  and,  needless  to  say,  I  agreed  with  him.  But  the 
pendulum,  as  it  were,  had  swung  too  far.  The  human 
brain  is  too  complex  a  mechanism  to  admit  of  any  such 
complete  re-adjustment  in  an  instant.  It  is  said  to  be  com- 
posed of  several  billion  cells;  and,  that  fact  granted,  it  seems 
safe  to  say  that  every  day,  perhaps  every  hour,  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  those  within  my  skull  were  now  being  brought 

83 


84  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

into  a  state  of  renewed  activity.  Comparatively  sane  and  able 
to  recognize  the  important  truths  of  life,  I  was  yet  insane  as 
to  many  of  its  practical  details.  Judgment  being  King  of 
the  Realm  of  Thought,  it  was  not  surprising  that  my  judg- 
ment faUed  often  to  decide  correctly  the  many  questions 
presented  to  it  by  its  abnormally  communicative  subjects. 
At  first  I  seemed  to  live  a  second  childhood.  I  did  with 
delight  many  things  which  I  had  first  learned  to  do  as  a 
child  —  the  more  so  as  it  had  been  necessary  for  me  to 
learn  again  how  to  eat  and  walk,  and  now  how  to  talk.  I 
had  much  lost  time  to  make  up;  and,  for  a  while,  my  sole 
ambition  seemed  to  be  to  utter  as  many  thousand  words  per 
diem  as  possible.  My  fellow-patients  who  for  fourteen 
months  had  seen  me  walk  about  in  silence  —  a  silence  so 
profound  and  inexorable  that  I  would  seldom  heed  their 
friendly  salutations  —  were  naturally  surprised  to  see  me 
in  my  new  mood  of  unrestrained  loquacity  and  irrepres- 
sible good-humor.  In  short,  I  had  come  into  that  abnor- 
mal condition  which  is  known  to  psychiatrists  as  "  elation." 
For  several  weeks  I  believe  I  did  not  sleep  more  than  two 
or  three  hours  of  the  twenty-four,  each  day.  Such  was  my 
state  of  elation,  however,  that  all  signs  of  fatigue  were  en- 
tirely absent;  and  the  sustained  and  abnormal  mental  and 
physical  activity,  in  which  I  then  indulged,  has  left  on  my 
memory  no  other  than  a  series  of  very  pleasant  impressions. 
Though  based  on  fancy  the  delights  of  madness  are  real. 
Few,  if  any,  sane  persons  would  care  to  test  the  matter  at  so 
great  a  price;  but  those  familiar  with  the  "Letters  of  Charles 
Lamb,"  must  know  that  Lamb  himself,  at  one  time  during 
his  early  manhood,  underwent  treatment  for  mental  dis- 
ease. In  a  letter  to  Coleridge,  dated  June  lo,  1796,  he  says: 
"At  some  future  time  I  will  amuse  you  with  an  account, 
as  full  as  my  memory  will  permit,  of  the  strange  turns  my 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  85 

frenzy  took.  I  look  back  upon  it  at  times  with  a  gloomy  kind 
of  envy;  for,  while  it  lasted,  I  had  many,  many  hours  of  pure 
happiness.  Dream  not,  Coleridge,  of  having  tasted  all  the 
grandeur  and  wildness  of  Fancy  till  you  have  gone  mad! 
All  now  seems  to  me  vapid,  comparatively  so!" 

As  for  me,  the  very  first  night  vague  and  vast  humanita- 
rian projects  began  joyously  to  shape  themselves  in  my  mind. 
My  garden  of  thoughts  seemed  filled  with  flowers  which 
might  properly  be  likened  to  the  quick-blowing,  night-bloom- 
ing cereus — that  Delusion  of  Grandeur  of  all  flowering  plants 
that  thinks  itself  prodigal  enough  if  it  but  unmask  its  beauty 
to  the  moon!  Few  of  my  bold  fancies,  however,  were  of  so 
fugitive  and  chaste  a  splendor. 

The  religious  instinct  is  found  in  primitive  man.  It  is 
not  strange,  therefore,  that  at  this  time  the  religious  side 
of  my  nature  was  the  first  to  display  compeUing  activity. 
Whether  or  not  this  was  due  to  my  rescue  from  a  living  death, 
and  my  immediate  appreciation  of  God's  goodness  both  to 
me  and  to  those  faithful  relatives  who  had  done  all  the  pray- 
ing during  the  preceding  two  years  —  this  I  cannot  say. 
But  the  fact  stands  out,  that,  whereas  I  had,  while  in  the 
depressed  state,  attached  a  sinister  significance  to  every- 
thing done  or  said  in  my  presence,  I  now  interpreted  the 
most  trifling  incidents  as  messages  from  God.  The  day 
after  this  transition  I  attended  church.  It  was  the 
first  service  in  over  two  years  which  I  had  not  attended 
against  my  will.  The  reading  of  a  psalm  —  the  45  th  — 
made  a  lasting  impression  upon  me,  and  the  interpretation 
which  I  placed  upon  it  furnishes  the  key  to  my  attitude 
during  the  first  weeks  of  elation.  It  seemed  to  me  a  direct 
message  from  Heaven. 

The  minister  began:  "My  heart  is  inditing  a  good  matter: 
I  speak  of  the  things  which  I  have  made  touching  the  King : 


86  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

my  tongue  is  the  pen  of  a  ready  writer."  —  Whose  heart  but 
mine?  And  the  things  indited  —  what  were  they  but  the 
humanitarian  projects  which  had  blossomed  in  my  garden 
of  thoughts  over  night?  When,  a  few  days  later,  I  found 
myself  writing  very  long  letters  with  unwonted  facility,  I 
became  convinced  that  my  tongue  was  to  prove  itself  "the 
pen  of  a  ready  writer."  Indeed,  to  these  prophetic  words 
I  trace  the  inception  of  an  irresistible  desire,  of  which  this 
book  is  the  first  fruit.  / 

"Thou  art  fairer  than  the  children  of  men:  grace  is  poured 
into  thy  lips:"  was  the  verse  next  read,  to  which  the  minister 
responded,  "Therefore  God  hath  blessed  thee  for  ever."  — 
"Surely,"  thought  I,  "I. have  been  selected  as  the  instru- 
ment wherewith  great  reforms  shall  be  effected."  (All  is 
grist  that  comes  to  the  mill  of  a  mind  in  elation,  —  then  even 
divine  encomiums  seem  not  undeserved.) 

"Gird  thy  sword  upon  thy  thigh,  O  most  mighty,  with 
thy  glory  and  thy  majesty,"  —  a  command  to  fight.  "And 
in  thy  majesty  ride  prosperously  because  of  truth  and  meek- 
ness and  righteousness;"  repHed  the  minister.  "And  thy 
right  hand  shall  teach  thee  terrible  things,"  read  I.  That 
I  could  speak  the  truth,  I  knew.  "Meekness"  I  could  not 
associate  with  myself,  except  that  during  the  preceding 
two  years  I  had  suffered  many  indignities  without  open  re- 
sentment. That  my  right  hand  with  a  pen  should  teach  me 
terrible  things  —  how  to  fight  for  reform  —  I  firmly  believed. 

"  Thine  arrows  are  sharp  in  the  heart  of  the  King's  enemies, 
whereby  the  people  fall  under  thee,"  quoth  the  minister. 
Yes,  my  tongue  could  be  as  sharp  as  an  arrow,  and  I  should 
be  able  to  stand  up  against  those  who  should  stand  in 
the  way  of  reform.  Again:  "Thou  lovest  righteousness, 
and  hatest  wickedness.  —  Therefore  God,  thy  God,  hath 
anointed  thee  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  thy  fellows." 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  87 

The  first  sentence  I  did  not  apply  to  myself;  but  being  then, 
as  I  supposed,  a  man  restored  to  himself,  it  was  easy  to  feel 
that  I  had  been  anointed  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  my 
fellows.  "Oil  of  gladness"  is,  in  truth,  an  apt  phrase 
wherewith  to  describe  "elation." 

The  last  two  verses  of  the  psalm  corroborated  the  mes- 
sages found  in  the  preceding  verses:  "I  will  make  thy  name 
to  be  remembered  in  all  generations:"  —  thus  the  minister. 
"Therefore  shall  the  people  praise  thee  for  ever  and  ever," 
was  the  response  I  read.  That  spelled  immortal  fame 
for  me,  but  only  on  condition  that  I  should  carry  to  a  success- 
ful conclusion  the  mission  of  reform  —  an  obligation  placed 
upon  me  by  God  when  He  restored  my  reason. 

I  know  of  no  better  v/ay  to  convey  to  the  reader  my 
state  of  mind  during  these  first  weeks  of  elation  than  to 
confess  —  if  confession  it  is  —  that  when  I  set  out  upon  a 
career  of  reform  I  was  impelled  to  do  so  by  motives  in 
part  like  those  which  seem  to  have  possessed  Don  Quixote 
when  he,  madman  that  he  was,  set  forth,  as  Cervantes 
says,  with  the  intention  "of  righting  every  kind  of  wrong, 
and  exposing  himself  to  peril  and  danger,  from  which  in 
the  issue  he  would  obtain  eternal  renown  and  fame."  The 
quoted  passage,  first  read  by  me  while  preparing  for  publi- 
cation the  printed  proof  of  my  manuscript,  embodies  the 
very  idea  I  had  expressed  months  earher,  while  writing  the 
paragraph  which  immediately  precedes  this  one.  In  liken- 
ing myself  to  Cerv^antes'  mad  hero  my  purpose  is  quite 
other  than  to  push  myself  within  the  charmed  circle  of  the 
chivalrous.  What  I  wish  to  do  is  to  make  plain  that  one 
abnormally  elated  may  be  swayed  irresistibly  by  his  best 
instincts,  and  that  while  under  the  spell  of  an  exaltation, 
idealistic  in  degree,  he  may  not  only  be  willing,  but  eager 
to  assume  risks  and  endure  hardships  which  under  normal 


88  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

conditions  he  would  assume  reluctantly,  if  at  all.  In  jus- 
tice to  myself,  however,  and  lest  I  should  do  "the  cause" 
an  injury,  I  feel  privileged  to  remark  that  my  plans  for 
reform  have  never  assumed  Quixotic,  and  therefore  im- 
practicable, proportions.  At  no  time  have  I  gone  a-tilting 
at  windmills.  A  pen  rather  than  a  lance  has  been  my 
weapon  of  offense  and  defense;  for  with  its  point  I  have 
felt  sure  that  I  should  one  day  prick  the  civic  conscience 
into  a  compassionate  activity,  and  thus  bring  into  a  neg- 
lected field  earnest  men  and  women  who  should  act  as 
champions  for  those  afflicted  thousands  least  able  to  fight 
for  themselves. 


XIII 

After  being  without  relatives  and  friends  for  over  two 
years  I  naturally  lost  no  time  in  trying  again  to  get  in  touch 
with  them;  —  though  I  did  heed  my  conservator's  request 
that  I  first  give  him  two  or  three  days  in  which  to  acquaint 
certain  persons  with  the  new  turn  my  affairs  had  taken. 

During  the  latter  part  of  that  first  week  I  wrote  many 
letters,  so  many,  indeed,  that  I  soon  exhausted  a  liberal 
supply  of  stationery.  This  had  been  placed  at  my 
disposal  at  the  suggestion  of  my  conservator,  who  had 
wisely  arranged  that  I  should  have  whatever  I  wanted,  if 
expedient.  It  was  now  at  my  own  suggestion  that  the  super- 
visor gave  me  large  sheets  of  manila  wrapping  paper.  These 
I  proceeded  to  cut  into  strips  a  foot  wide.  One  such  strip, 
four  feet  long,  would  suffice  for  a  mere  billet-doux;  but  a 
real  letter  usually  required  several  such  strips  pasted  to- 
gether. More  than  once  letters  twenty  or  thirty  feet  long  were 
written;  and  on  one  occasion  the  accumulation  of  two  or 
three  days  of  excessive  productivity,  when  spread  upon  the 
floor,  reached  from  one  end  of  the  corridor  to  the  other  —  a 
distance  of  about  one  hundred  feet.  My  output  per  hour 
was  something  Hke  twelve  feet  with  an  average  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  words  to  the  foot.  Under  the  pressure  of 
elation  one  takes  pride  in  doing  everything  in  record  time. 
Despite  my  speed,  however,  my  letters  were  not  incoherent. 
They  were  simply  digressive,  which  was  to  be  expected,  as 
elation  befogs  one's  "goal  idea."  Though  these  epistolary 
monstrosities  were    launched,  few    reached   their  intended 

89 


90  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

addressees,  for  my  conservator  had  wisely  ordered  that  my 
literary  output  be  sent  in  bulk  to  him.  This  interference 
was  exasperating,  but  later  I  reahzed  that  my  brother  had 
done  me  a  great  favor  when  he  interposed  his  judgment 
between  my  red-hot  mentahty  and  the  cool  minds  of  the 
work-a-day  world.  Yet,  this  interference  with  what  I 
deemed  my  rights  proved  to  be  the  first  step  in  the  general 
overruling  of  them  by  tactless  attendants  and,  in  particular, 
by  a  certain  assistant  physician. 

All  my  life  I  have  exhibited  more  than  the  average  desire 
to  superintend;  and  when  a  man  is  so  constituted  that  he 
knows  —  or  thinks  he  knows  —  what  he  wants  to  do  at  any 
present  or  future  time,  it  is  quite  natural  that  he  should  give 
more  advice  than  he  is  willing  to  take.  In  my  elated  con- 
dition I  had  an  excess  of  questionable  executive  ability;  and 
in  order  to  decrease  this  executive  pressure  I  proceeded  to 
assume  entire  charge  of  that  portion  of  the  hospital  in  which 
I  happened  at  the  moment  to  be  confined.  What  I  even- 
tually issued  as  imperative  orders,  at  first  were  often  pre- 
sented as  suggestions.  But  my  statements  were  usually 
requests  —  my  requests,  demands;  and,  if  my  suggestions 
were  not  accorded  a  respectful  hearing,  and  my  demands 
acted  on  at  once,  I  invariably  substituted  vituperative  ulti- 
matums. These  were  double-edged,  and  involved  me  in 
trouble  quite  as  often  as  they  gained  the  ends  I  had  in  view. 

The  assistant  physician  in  charge  of  my  case,  realizing 
that  he  could  not  grant  all  of  my  requests,  unwisely  decided 
to  deny  most  of  them.  Had  he  been  tactful  he  could  have 
taken  the  same  stand  without  arousing  my  animosity.  As 
it  was,  he  treated  me  with  a  contemptuous  sort  of  indiffer- 
ence which  finally  developed  into  spite,  and  led  to  much 
trouble  for  us  both.  During  the  two  wild  months  that 
followed,  the  superintendent  and  the  steward  could  induce 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  91 

me  to  do  almost  anything  by  simply  requesting  it.  If  two 
men  out  of  three  could  control  me  easily  during  such  a  period 
of  mental  excitement,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  third  man,  the  assistant  physician,  could  likewise  have 
controlled  me  had  he  treated  me  with  due  consideration? 
It  was  his  undisguised  superciliousness  that  gave  birth  to 
my  contempt  for  him.  In  a  letter  written  during  my  second 
week  of  elation,  I  expressed  the  opinion  that  he  and  I  should 
get  along  well  together.  But  that  was  before  I  had  become 
troublesome  enough  to  try  the  man's  patience.  Neverthe- 
less, it  indicates  that  this  doctor  could  have  saved  himself 
hours  of  time  and  subsequent  worry  had  he  met  my  friendly 
advances  in  the  proper  spirit.  Physicians  throughout  the 
country  engaged  in  work  among  the  insane  may  profitably 
take  this  observation  to  heart,  —  and  ''heart"  I  use  advisedly, 
for  it  is  the  quality  of  heart  rather  than  the  quantity  of  mind 
that  cures  or  makes  happy  the  insane. 


The  literary  impulse  took  such  a  hold  on  me  that  when  I 
first  sat  down  to  compose  a  letter  I  bluntly  refused  to  stop 
writing  and  go  to  bed  when  the  attendant  ordered  me  to  do 
so.  For  over  one  year  this  man  had  seen  me  mute  and  meek, 
and  the  sudden  and  startling  change  from  passive  obedience 
to  uncompromising  independence  naturally  puzzled  him. 
He  threatened  to  drag  me  to  my  room,  but  strangely  enough 
decided  not  to  do  so.  After  half  an  hour's  futile  coaxing, 
during  which  time  an  unwonted  supply  of  blood  was  drawn 
to  his  brain,  that  surprised  organ  proved  its  gratitude  by  giv- 
ing birth  to  a  timely  and  sensible  idea.  With  an  unaccus- 
tomed resourcefulness,  by  cutting  off  the  supply  of  light  at 
the  switch,  he  put  the  entire  ward  in  darkness.  Secretly  I 
admired  the  stratagem,  but  my  words  on   that  occasion 


92  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

probably  conveyed  no  idea  of  the  approbation  that  lurked 
within  me. 

I  then  went  to  bed,  but  not  to  sleep.  The  ecstasy  of  ela- 
tion made  each  conscious  hour  one  of  rapturous  happiness, 
and  my  memory  knows  no  day  of  brighter  simlight  than 
those  nights.  The  flood  gates  of  thought  were  wide  open. 
So  jealous  of  each  other  were  the  thoughts  that  they  seemed 
to  stumble  over  one  another  in  their  mad  rush  to  present 
themselves  to  my  re-enthroned  ego. 

I  naturally  craved  companionship,  but  there  were  not 
many  patients  to  whom  I  cared  to  talk.  I  did,  however, 
greatly  desire  to  engage  the  assistant  physician  in  conversa- 
tion, as  he  was  a  man  of  some  education  and  familiar  with 
the  history  of  my  case.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the  assistant 
physician  at  the  sanatorium  subjected  me  to  mechanical 
restraint  on  the  plea  of  protecting  me  against  myself,  and 
later,  with  disgusting  brutality,  assaulted  me.  The  assist- 
ant physician  who  now  had  me  in  charge  acted  with  a  like 
inconsistency.  When  my  vocal  cords  were  bound  as  with  a 
chain,  by  delusions,  he  had  tried  to  induce  me  to  speak. 
Now,  when  I  was  at  last  willing  to  talk,  he  would  scarcely 
condescend  to  listen.  What  seemed  to  me  his  studied  and 
ill-disguised  avoidance  only  served  to  whet  my  desire  to 
detain  him  whenever  possible.  Of  course  my  flow  of  words 
was  interminable.  To  listen  to  all  of  it  would  have  been 
unbearable,  —  and,  indeed,  physically  impossible  for  a  doc- 
tor with  duties  to  other  patients  as  well  as  to  myself.  Yet  a 
physician  genuinely  interested  in  his  work  would,  as  I 
continue  to  think,  have  been  glad  to  observe  my  case  more 
closely  than  this  one  did  —  for  scientific  if  not  humanitarian 
reasons.  That  I  do  him  no  injustice  I  am  led  to  believe 
by  his  subsequent  conduct.  He  was  content  to  act  as  a 
sort  of  monitor,  to  which   role  he  added  that  of  despot 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  93 

when  anything  arose  to  interrupt  the  even  tenor  of  his  almost 
automatic  supervision. 

It  was  about  the  second  week  that  my  investigating  and 
reformatory  turn  of  mind  became  acute.  The  ward  in 
which  I  was  confined  was  well  furnished  and  as  home-like 
as  such  a  place  could  be,  though  in  justice  to  my  own  home 
I  must  observe  that  the  resemblance  was  not  great.  About 
the  so-called  "violent"  ward  I  had  far  less  favorable  ideas. 
Though  I  had  not  been  subjected  to  physical  abuse  dur- 
ing the  first  fourteen  months  of  my  stay  in  this  institution, 
I  had  seen  unnecessary  and  oftentimes  brutal  force  used  by 
the  attendants  in  the  restraint  of  several  so-called  "violent" 
patients,  who,  upon  their  arrival,  had  been  placed  in  the  ward 
where  I  was.  I  had  also  heard  convincing  rumors  of  rough 
treatment  of  irresponsible  patients  in  the  violent  ward.  Of 
course  the  rules  of  the  institution  forbade  such  treatment  (as 
the  rules  of  all  such  institutions  invariably  do)  except  on 
those  rare  occasions  when  attendants  are  obliged  to  act  in 
self-defense. 

Having  a  world  of  energy  to  dispense  I  determined  to 
conduct  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  institution.  In 
order  that  I  might  have  proof  that  my  intended  action  was 
deUberate,  my  first  move  was  to  tell  one  or  two  feUow-patients 
that  I  should  soon  transgress  some  rule  in  such  a  way  as 
to  necessitate  my  removal  to  the  violent  ward.  At  first  I 
thought  of  breaking  a  few  panes  of  glass;  but  my  purpose 
was  accomplished  in  another  way  —  and,  indeed,  sooner 
than  I  had  anticipated.  My  conservator,  in  my  presence, 
had  told  the  assistant  physician  that  the  doctors  could  per- 
mit me  to  telephone  to  him  whenever  they  should  see  fit.  It 
was  rather  with  the  wish  to  test  the  unfriendly  physician^ 
than  to  satisfy  any  desire  to  speak  with  my  conservator,  that 
one  morning  I  asked  permission  to  call  the  latter  up  on  the 


94  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

telephone.  That  very  morning  I  had  received  a  letter  from 
him.  This  the  doctor  knew,  for  I  showed  him  the  letter  — 
but  not  its  contents.  It  was  on  the  letter  that  I  based  my 
pretext,  though  it  did  not  even  intimate  that  my  brother 
wished  to  speak  to  me.  The  doctor,  however,  had  no  way 
of  laiowing  that  my  statement  was  not  true.  To  deny  my 
request  was  simply  one  of  his  ill-advised  whims,  and  his  re- 
fusal was  given  with  customary  curtness  and  contempt.  I 
met  his  refusal  in  kind,  and  presented  him  with  a  critique 
of  his  character  couched  in  my  tersest  English. 

Said  he,  "Unless  you  stop  talking  in  that  way  I  shall  have 
you  transferred  to  the  Fourth  Ward."  (The  Fourth  was 
the  "violent"  ward.) 

"Put  me  where  you  please,"  was  my  reply.  "I'll  put 
you  in  the  gutter  before  I  get  through  with  you." 

With  that  the  doctor  made  good  his  threat,  and  the  at- 
tendant escorted  me  to  the  violent  ward  —  a  willing,  in 
fact,  eager  prisoner. 

The  ward  in  which  I  was  now  placed  (Saturday,  Septem- 
ber 13th,  1902)  was  furnished  in  the  plainest  manner.  The 
floors  were  of  hard  wood  and  the  walls  were  bare.  Except 
when  at  meals  or  out  of  doors  taking  their  accustomed  exer- 
cise, the  patients  usually  sat  together  in  one  large  room.  In 
this,  only  heavy  benches  were  used  to  sit  upon.  Such  tempt- 
ing weapons  as  chairs  were  deemed  inexpedient.  It  was 
thought  that  in  the  hands  of  violent  patients  they  might  be- 
come a  menace  to  the  attendants  and  to  other  patients.  In 
the  dining-room,  however,  wooden  chairs  of  a  substantial 
type  were  allowed,  for  patients  seldom  run  amuck  at  meal 
time.  Nevertheless,  one  of  the  chairs  in  that  room  soon 
acquired  a  history,  part  of  which  must  be  related. 

As  my  banishment  had  come  about  on  short  notice  I  had 
failed  to  provide  myself  with  many  things  I  could  have  de- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  95 

sired.  My  first  request  was  that  I  be  supplied  with  station- 
ery. The  attendants,  acting  no  doubt  on  the  doctor's  orders, 
refused  to  grant  my  request ;  nor  would  they  give  me  a  lead 
pencil  —  which,  luckily,  I  did  not  need,  for  I  happened  to 
be  already  possessed  of  one.  Despite  their  refusal  I  man- 
aged to  get  some  scraps  of  paper,  on  which  I  was  soon  busily 
engaged  in  writing  notes  to  those  in  authority.  Some  of 
these  (as  I  learned  later)  were  dehvered,  but  no  attention 
was  paid  to  them.  No  doctor  came  near  me  until  evening, 
when  the  one  who  had  banished  me  made  his  regular  round 
of  inspection.  When  he  appeared  the  interrupted  conversa- 
tion of  the  morning  was  resumed  —  that  is,  by  me,  —  and 
in  a  similar  strain.  I  again  asked  leave  to  telephone  my 
conservator.  I  knew  that  on  Sunday  I  could  not  make  con- 
nections, so  I  asked  for  permission  to  telephone  on  Mon- 
day. The  doctor  again  refused,  and  I,  of  course,  told  him 
what  I  thought  of  him. 

My  imprisonment  pleased  me.  I  was  where  I  most  wished 
to  be,  and  I  busied  myself  investigating  conditions  and  re- 
cording mental  notes.  As  the  assistant  physician  could 
grant  favors  to  the  attendants,  and  had  authority  either  to 
retain  or  discharge  them,  they  did  his  bidding  and  continued 
to  refuse  most  of  my  requests.  In  spite  of  their  unfriendly 
attitude,  however,  I  did  manage  to  persuade  the  supervisor 
to  dehver  a  note  to  the  steward.  In  it  I  asked  him  to  come 
at  once,  as  I  wished  to  talk  with  him.  The  steward,  whom 
I  looked  upon  as  a  friend,  returned  no  answer  and  made  no 
visit.  I  supposed  he,  too,  had  purposely  ignored  me.  As 
I  learned  afterwards,  both  he  and  the  superintendent  were 
absent,  else  perhaps  I  should  have  been  treated  in  a  less 
high-handed  manner  by  the  assistant  physician. 

The  next  morning,  after  a  renewal  of  my  request  and  a 
repeated  refusal,  I  asked  the  doctor  to  send  me  the  "Book 


96  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

of  Psalms"  which  I  had  had  in  my  former  room.  With  this 
request  he  complied,  believing,  perhaps,  that  some  religion 
would  at  least  do  me  no  harm.  I  probably  read  my  favorite 
psalm,  the  forty- fifth;  but  most  of  my  time  I  spent  writing 
on  the  fly-leaves  psalms  of  my  own.  And  if  the  value  of  a 
psalm  is  to  be  measured  by  the  intensity  of  feeling  por- 
trayed, my  compositions  of  that  day  rightly  belonged  beside 
the  writings  of  David.  My  psalms  were  indited  to  those 
in  authority  at  the  hospital,  and  later  in  the  day  the  super- 
visor —  who  proved  himself  a  friend  on  many  occasions  — 
took  the  book  to  headquarters. 

The  assistant  physician,  who  had  mistaken  my  malevolent 
tongue  for  a  violent  mind,  had  placed  me  in  an  exile  which 
precluded  my  attendance  upon  the  service  which  was  held 
in  the  chapel  that  Sunday  afternoon.  Time  which  might 
better  have  been  spent  in  church  I  therefore  spent  in  per- 
fecting a  somewhat  ingenious  scheme  for  getting  in  touch 
with  the  steward.  That  evening  when  the  doctor  again  ap- 
peared I  approached  him  in  a  friendly  way  and  politely 
repeated  my  request.  He  again  refused  to  grant  it.  With 
an  air  of  resignation  I  said,  "Well,  as  it  seems  useless  to 
argue  the  point  with  you,  and  as  the  notes  sent  to  others 
have  thus  far  been  ignored,  I  should  like,  with  your  kind 
permission,  to  kick  a  hole  in  your  damned  old  building  and 
to-morrow  present  myself  to  the  steward  in  his  ofl&ce." 

"Kick  away!"  said  he  with  a  sneer.  He  then  entered  an 
adjoining  ward,  where  he  remained  for  about  ten  minutes. 

If  you  will  draw  in  your  mind,  or  on  paper,  a  letter  "L," 
and  let  the  upright  part  represent  a  room  forty  feet  in  length, 
and  the  horizontal  part  one  of  twenty,  and  if  you  will  then 
picture  me  as  standing  in  a  doorway  at  the  intersection  of 
these  two  lines,  and  the  doctor  behind  another  door  at  the 
top  of  the  perpendicular,  forty  feet  away,  you  will  have  rep- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF 


97 


resented  graphically  the  opposing  armies  just  prior  to  the 
first  real  assault  in  what  proved  to  be  a  siege  of  seven  weeks. 

The  moment  the  doctor  re-entered  the  ward,  as  he  had  to 
do  to  return  to  the  office,  I  disappeared  through  my  door  — 
into  the  dining-room.  I  then  walked  the  length  of  this  room 
and  picked  up  one  of  the  heavy  wooden  chairs,  selected  for 
the  purpose  in  view  while  the  doctor  and  his  tame  charges 
were  at  church.  Using  the  chair  as  a  battering-ram,  without 
malice  —  joy  being  in  my  heart  —  I  deliberately  thrust  two 
of  its  legs  through  an  upper  and  a  lower  pane  of  a  four- 
paned  plate  glass  window.  The  only  miscalculation  I  made 
was  in  failing  to  place  myself  directly  in  front  of  that 
window,  and  at  a  proper  distance,  so  that  I  might  have 
broken  every  one  of  the  four  panes.  This  was  a  source  of 
regret  to  me,  and  well  it  might  have  been  so,  for  I  am  loath 
to  leave  a  well  thought-out  piece  of  work  unfinished. 

The  crash  of  shattered  and  falling  glass  startled  every  one 
but  me.  Particularly  did  it  frighten  one  patient  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  dining-room  at  the  time.  He  fled.  The 
doctor  and  the  attendant  who  were  in  the  next  room  could 
not  see  me,  or  know  what  the  trouble  was;  but  they  lost  no 
time  in  finding  out.  Within  two  or  three  seconds  they  ap- 
peared, in  a  state  of  great  excitement.  Like  the  proverbial 
cold-blooded  murderer  who  stands  over  his  victim,  weapon 
in  hand,  calmly  awaiting  arrest,  I  stood  my  ground,  and, 
with  a  fair  degree  of  poise,  awaited  the  onrush  of  doctor  and 
attendant.  These  soon  had  me  in  hand.  Each  taking  an 
arm  they  marched  me  to  my  room.  This  consumed  not 
more  than  half  a  minute,  but  the  time  was  not  so  short  as 
to  prevent  my  delivering  myself  of  one  more  thumb-nail 
characterization  of  the  doctor.  .  My  inability  to  recall  that 
delineation,  verbatim,  entails  no  loss  on  literature,  for,  I 
fear,  my  words  approached  an  unprintable  perfection.    But 


98  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

one  remark  made  as  the  doctor  seized  hold  of  me  was  apt, 
though  not  impromptu.  I  had  framed  the  sally  several 
hours  earlier.  "Well,  doctor,  knowing  you  to  be  a  truthful 
man,  I  just  took  you  at  your  word,"  said  I. 

Senseless  as  this  act  of  mine  appears  it  was,  like  so  many 
acts  of  the  insane,  the  result  of  logical  thinking.  Indeed, 
logical  thinking  among  the  insane  is  common,  rather  than 
rare.  But  the  logical  faculty  in  an  insane  person  is  usu- 
ally of  sHght  advantage  to  him,  for  he  reasons  either  from 
a  false  premise,  or  reasoning  correctly  he  betrays  his  insane 
condition  when  he  attempts  to  apply  his  logic  to  a  given 
situation.  An  illuminating  example  of  an  insane  appli- 
cation of  sound  logic  is  afforded  by  the  incident  I  am  now 
discussing.  The  steward  had  entire  charge  of  the  building 
and  ordered  all  necessary  repairs.  It  was  he  whom  I  de- 
sired above  all  others  to  see,  and  I  reasoned  that  the  break- 
ing of  several  dollars'  worth  of  plate  glass  (for  which, 
later,  to  my  surprise,  I  had  to  pay)  would  compel  his  atten- 
tion on  grounds  of  economy,  if  not  those  of  the  friendly 
interest  which  I  now  believed  he  had  abandoned.  Early 
the  next  morning,  as  I  had  hoped,  the  steward  appeared. 
He  approached  me  in  a  friendly  way  (as  had  been  his  wont) 
and  I  met  him  in  a  like  manner.  Said  he,  good-naturedly, 
"I  wish  you  would  leave  a  little  bit  of  the  building." 

"I  will  leave  it  all,  and  gladly,  if  you  will  pay  some  atten- 
tion to  my  messages,"  said  I. 

"Had  I  not  been  out  of  town,"  said  he,  "I  would  have 
come  to  see  you  sooner."  And  this  honest  excuse  I  believed 
and  accepted. 

I  made  known  to  the  steward  the  assistant  physician's  be- 
havior in  balking  my  desire  to  telephone  my  conservator. 
He  agreed  to  place  the  matter  before  the  superintendent, 
who  had  that  morning  returned.     As   proof  of  gratitude, 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  99 

I  promised  to  suspend  hostilities  until  I  had  had  a  talk 
with  the  superintendent.  I  made  it  quite  plain,  however, 
that  should  he  fail  to  keep  his  word,  I  would  further  facili- 
tate the  ventilation  of  the  violent  ward  —  not  a  polite  thing 
to  say,  but  my  faith  in  mankind  was  not  yet  wholly  re- 
stored. 


XIV 

A  FEW  hours  later,  without  having  witnessed  anything  of 
particular  significance,  except  as  it  befeU  myself,  I  was  trans- 
ferred to  my  old  ward.  The  superintendent,  who  had  or- 
dered this  rehabihtation,  soon  appeared,  and  he  and  I  had  a 
satisfactory  talk.  He  gave  me  to  understand  that  he  him- 
self would  look  after  my  case,  as  he  reaHzed  that  his  assist- 
ant lacked  the  requisite  tact  and  judgment  to  cope  with  one 
of  my  temperament  —  and  with  that,  my  desire  to  telephone 
my  conservator  vanished. 

Now  no  physician  would  Hke  to  have  his  wings  cHpped  by 
an  insane  patient,  even  indirectly,  and  without  doubt  the 
man's  pride  was  piqued  as  his  incompetence  was  thus  made 
patent.  Thereafter  when  he  passed  through  the  ward  he 
and  I  had  frequent  tilts.  Not  only  did  I  lose  no  opportunity 
to  behttle  him  in  the  presence  of  attendants  and  patients,  but 
I  even  created  such  opportunities;  so  that  before  long  he 
studiously  avoided  me  whenever  possible.  But  it  seldom 
was  possible.  My  chief  amusement  consisted  in  what  were 
really  one-sided  interviews  with  him.  Occasionally  he  was 
so  unwise  as  to  stand  his  ground  for  several  minutes,  and 
his  arguments  on  such  occasions  served  only  to  keep  my  tem- 
per at  a  vituperative  heat.  If  there  were  any  epithets  which 
I  failed  to  apply  to  him  during  the  succeeding  weeks  of  my 
association  with  him  they  must  have  been  coined  since.  I 
am  no  candidate  for  the  reputation  which  attaches  to  mean 
tongues;  but  I  wish  to  give  some  slight  excuse  for  the  hateful 
way  in  which  this  man  treated  me  when  I  finally  fell  into 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  loi 

his  power.  The  fact  is  that  the  uncanny  admixture  of  san- 
ity displayed  by  me,  despite  my  insane  condition,  was  some- 
thing this  doctor  could  not  comprehend.  Remarks  of  mine, 
therefore,  which  should  have  been  discounted  or  ignored, 
rankled  in  his  breast  as  the  insults  of  a  sane  and  free  man 
would  have  done.  No  doubt  a  rare  degree  of  tact  was  what 
was  required  for  the  proper  and  continued  control  of  a 
patient  of  my  temperatment.  Yet  I  am  sure  a  judicious 
granting  of  requests,  or  a  helpful  refusal,  would  have 
contributed  to  an  earher  recovery  and  insured  a  less  stormy 
period  of  convalesence.  For  a  mind  as  active  as  mine  to 
be  contented  for  long  was  out  of  the  question;  yet  I  know 
that  the  blunt  and  indiscriminate  refusal  of  most  of  my  re- 
quests prolonged  my  period  of  mental  excitement ;  whereas, 
fair  treatment  would  have  restored  me  to  health,  freedom, 
and  society  several  months  earher.  The  loss  of  time  is  of 
small  moment,  but  the  risk  of  irreparable  injury  which 
I  was  forced  to  assume  is  not  to  be  hghtly  regarded.  That 
some  curable  cases  of  insanity  have  been  made  chronic 
by  just  such  treatment  as  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  survive 
is  an  indisputable  fact,  —  direct  proof  whereof  can  never  be 
offered  by  these  hapless  ones,  for  they  are  now  in  their  graves 
—  living  graves,  some  of  them. 

When  my  period  of  depression  gave  way  to  one  of  elation, 
an  ultimate,  if  temporary  recovery  at  least  was  assured. 
What  followed  was  a  period  of  convalescence,  and  the  doc- 
tors knew  that  the  return  of  my  brain  to  its  normal  condition 
would  be  only  a  question  of  time,  —  though  they  could  not 
predict  whether  normahty  would  long  continue,  for  cycles 
of  depression  and  elation  tend  to  recur  in  a  brain  that  has 
once  been  so  affected.  Surely  I  was  entitled  to  the  sanest 
of  treatment  from  the  very  moment  the  state  of  comparative 
sanity  manifested  itself.    Instead,  I  was  soon  subjected  to 


I02  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

treatment  so  brutal  that  I  might  not  have  survived  it  had 
I  not  been  blessed  with  a  strong  constitution  and  a  virile 
hope. 

After  my  return  to  my  old  ward  I  remained  there  for  a 
period  of  three  weeks.  At  that  time  I  was  a  very  self-cen- 
tered individual.  My  large  and  varied  assortment  of  delu- 
sions of  grandeur  made  everything  seem  possible.  There 
were  few  problems  I  hesitated  to  attack.  With  sufficient 
provocation  I  even  attacked  attendants  —  problems  in 
themselves;  but  such  fights  as  I  subsequently  engaged  in 
were  fights,  either  for  my  own  rights  or  the  rights  of 
others.  Though  for  a  while  I  got  along  fairly  well  with 
the  attendants  and  as  well  as  could  be  expected  with  the 
assistant  physician,  it  soon  became  evident  that  these  men 
felt  that  to  know  me  more  was  to  love  me  less.  Owing 
to  their  lack  of  capacity  for  the  work  required  of  them, 
I  was  able  to  cause  them  endless  annoyance.  Many 
times  a  day  I  would  instruct  the  attendants  what  to  do 
and  what  not  to  do,  and  tell  them  what  I  should  do 
if  my  requests,  suggestions,  or  orders  were  not  immedi- 
ately complied  with.  For  over  one  year  the  attendants 
had  seen  me  in  a  passive,  almost  speechless  condition,  and 
they  were,  therefore,  unable  to  understand  my  unwonted 
aggressions.  The  threat  that  I  would  chastise  them  for  any 
disobedience  of  my  orders  they  looked  upon  as  a  huge  joke. 
So  it  was,  until  one  day  I  incontinently  cracked  that  joke 
against  the  head  of  one  of  them. 

It  began  in  this  wise:  Early  in  October  a  man  was  com- 
mitted to  my  ward  whose  abnormality  for  the  most  part  con- 
sisted of  an  inordinate  thirst  for  hquor.  He  did  not  appear 
to  me  to  be  really  insane,  nor,  according  to  report,  had  he 
ever  been  so,  except  as  thousands  of  free  men  are  who  have 
poisoned  their  systems  with  strong  drink.     He  was  over 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  103 

fifty  years  of  age,  well  educated,  traveled,  refined  and  of  an 
artistic  temperament.  Congenial  companions  were  scarce 
where  I  was,  and  he  and  I  were  soon  drawn  together  in 
friendship.  This  man  had  been  trapped  into  the  institu- 
tion by  the  subterfuge  of  relatives.  As  is  common  in  such 
cases  many  ''white"  Kes  had  been  resorted  to  in  order  to 
save  trouble  for  all  concerned,  —  that  is,  all  except  the  pa- 
tient. To  be  taken  vsdthout  notice  from  one's  home  and 
by  a  deceitful,  though,  under  the  circumstances,  perhaps 
justifiable  strategy,  placed  in  a  ward  with  fifteen  other  men, 
aU  exhibiting  insanity  in  varying  degrees,  is  as  heartbreak- 
ing an  ordeal  as  one  can  well  imagine.  Yet  such  was  this 
man's  experience.  A  free  man  one  day,  he  found  himself 
deprived  of  his  liberty  the  next,  and  branded  with  what  he 
at  the  time  considered  an  unbearable  disgrace.  In  justice 
to  the  relatives  of  this  man,  however,  it  is  but  fair  to  credit 
them  with  good  intentions.  They  simply  erred  through  ig- 
norance. Like  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  persons  so 
situated,  they  did  not  know  that  it  is  not  only  safe,  but  ad- 
visable, to  tell  the  afflicted  one  the  truth,  and  nothing  but 
the  truth  —  after  his  mental  condition  has  been  passed  upon 
by  competent  authorities  and  arrangements  have  been  made 
for  his  transfer  to  a  public  or  private  hospital.  This  point 
I  have  discussed  with  physicians  who  have  had  placed  under 
their  care  hundreds  of  insane  persons.  Their  advice  may 
be  summed  up  as  folio V\^s:  After  the  relatives  of  an  insane 
person,  or  of  a  person  threatened  with  insanity,  have  reached 
the  point  where  commitment  of  the  patient  has  become  in- 
evitable, let  them  act  with  decision,  tact,  and  honesty.  First 
complete  the  arrangements  for  the  transfer  of  the  patient 
to  the  hospital;  then  shortly  before  the  transfer  is  to  be  made, 
teU  the  patient  frankly  why  such  action  has  been  taken  or 
tell  him  earlier,  provided  he  be  kept  constantly  under  the 


I04  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

care  of  a  nurse  —  this  to  guard  against  any  overt  act  induced 
by  that  innate  and  sometimes  overpowering  dread  of  con- 
finement in  a  hospital  for  the  insane.^  Emphasize  the  fact 
that  a  mental  disorder  cannot  be  treated  properly  at  home, 
and  that  the  patient  will  stand  a  better  chance  for  recovery 
in  an  institution  than  out  of  one,  —  which  is  true.  Assure 
the  patient  that  he  will  be  visited  often  by  relatives  and 
friends,  and  impress  upon  him  that  his  every  interest  will 
be  safeguarded.  Then  keep  such  promises  to  the  letter. 
Experience  teaches  that  a  patient  who  is  treated  honestly 
from  the  beginning  usually  enters  a  hospital  with  compar- 
atively slight  reluctance.  Further,  he  is  quick  to  appreciate 
the  advantages  of  hospital  treatment,  —  indeed,  he  frequently 
appreciates  its  benefits  much  sooner  than  those  who  effected 
his  commitment.  Thus,  by  a  firm,  tactful,  honest  method 
of  procedure,  a  patient's  confidence  in  his  relatives,  friends 
and  the  hospital  authorities  is  at  once  established  and  easily 
maintained,  with  incalculable  benefit  to  all;  whereas,  on  the 
other  hand,  subterfuge  and  "white"  lies  —  which  are  so 
often  black  lies,  undermine  the  confidence  of  the  patient, 
make  him  unhappy,  delay  his  recovery,  and  seriously  ham- 
per the  hospital  officials  in  their  appointed  work. 

Mr.  Blank  (as  I  shall  call  him)  was  completely  unnerved. 

'  As  laws  regarding  commitment  are  not  uniform  throughout  the  coun- 
try, it  would  be  necessary  in  some  States  to  tell  the  patient,  earlier  than  is 
here  suggested,  of  his  impending  transfer  to  a  hospital.  Thus  do  imper- 
fect statutes  help  to  make  worse  a  situation  already  distressing.  Another 
source  of  trouble  is  an  ignorant  handling  of  the  patient,  on  his  way  to  a  hos- 
pital. Trained  attendants  should  be  called  in  at  such  a  time,  as  is  required 
by  law  in  some  States.  A  general  adoption  of  this  law  will  put  a  stop  to  the 
humiliating,  oftentimes  cruel,  and  invariably  unnecessary  hand-cuffing  and 
binding  of  insane  persons  while  being  transferred  to  an  institution.  It 
seems  fair  that  nurses  rather  than  ignorant,  and  perhaps  unfeeling,  officers 
of  the  law,  should  be  placed  in  charge  of  a  person  who  need  plead  guilty  to 
no  charge  other  than  that  of  being  in  ill-health. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  105 

As  he  was  a  stranger  in  what  I  well  knew  was  a  strange 
world  I  took  him  under  my  protecting  and  commodious 
wing.  I  did  all  I  could  to  cheer  him  up,  and  tried  to  secure 
for  him  from  the  attendants  that  consideration  which  I 
deemed  indispensable  to  his  well-being.  Patients  in  his 
condition  had  never  been  forced,  when  taking  their  exercise, 
to  walk  about  the  grounds  with  the  other  patients.  At  no 
time  during  the  preceding  fourteen  months  had  I  seen  a 
newly-committed  patient  forced  to  exercise  against  his  will. 
One  who  objected  was  invariably  left  in  the  ward,  or  his 
refusal  reported  to  the  doctor  before  further  steps  were 
resorted  to.  No  sane  person  need  stretch  his  imagination 
in  order  to  reahze  how  humiliating  it  would  be  for  this  man 
to  walk  with  a  crowd  which  greatly  resembled  a  "chain- 
gang."  Two  by  two,  guarded  by  an  attendant  —  usually 
two  attendants  —  these  hostages  of  misfortune  get  the  only 
long  walks  their  restricted  liberty  allows  them.  After  the 
one  or  two  occasions  when  this  man  did  walk  with  the  gang 
I  was  impressed  with  the  not  wholly  unreasonable  thought 
that  the  physical  exercise  in  no  way  compensated  for  the 
mental  distress  which  the  sense  of  humiliation  and  disgrace 
caused  him  to  suffer.  It  was  therefore  delightfully  easy  for 
me  to  interfere  in  his  behalf;  and  when  he  came  to  my  room, 
wrought  up  over  the  prospect  of  another  such  humiliation 
and  weeping  bitterly,  I  assured  him  that  he  should  take  his 
exercise  that  day  when  I  did.  My  first  move  to  accomplish 
the  desired  result  was  to  approach,  in  a  friendly  way,  the 
attendant  in  charge,  and  ask  him  to  permit  my  new  friend  to 
walk  about  the  grounds  with  me  when  next  I  went.  He 
said  he  would  do  nothing  of  the  kind  —  that  he  intended  to 
take  this  man  when  he  took  the  others.  Said  I,  "  For  over 
a  year  I  have  been  in  this  ward  and  so  have  you,  and  I  have 


io6  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

never  yet  seen  a  man  in  Mr.  Blank's  condition  forced  to  go 
out  of  doors." 

"It  makes  no  difference  whether  you  have  or  not,"  said 
the  attendant,  "he's  going." 

"Will  you  ask  the  doctor  whether  Mr.  Blank  can  or  can- 
not walk  about  the  grounds  with  my  special  attendant  when 
I  go?" 

"No,  I  won't.    Furthermore,  it's  none  of  your  business." 

"If  you  resort  to  physical  force  and  attempt  to  take  Mr. 
Blank  with  the  other  patients,  you'll  wish  you  hadn't," 
said  I,  and  I  walked  away. 

At  this  threat  the  attendant  scornfully  laughed.  To  him 
it  meant  nothing.  He  believed  I  could  fight  only  with  my 
tongue,  and  I  confess  that  I  myself  was  in  doubt  as  to  my 
power  of  fighting  otherwise. 

Returning  to  my  room  where  Mr.  Blank  was  in  waiting, 
I  supported  his  drooping  courage  and  again  assured  him 
that  he  should  be  spared  the  dreaded  ordeal.  I  ordered 
him  to  go  to  a  certain  room  at  the  farther  end  of  the  hall  and 
there  await  developments  —  so  that,  should  there  be  a  fight, 
the  line  of  battle  might  be  a  long  one.  He  obeyed.  In  a 
minute  or  two  the  attendant  was  headed  for  that  room.  I 
followed  closely  at  his  heels,  still  threatening  to  attack  him 
if  he  dared  so  much  as  lay  a  finger  on  my  friend.  Though 
I  was  not  then  aware  of  it,  I  was  followed  by  another  pa- 
tient, a  man,  who,  though  insane,  had  his  lucid  intervals  and 
always  a  loyal  heart.  He  seemed  to  realize  that  trouble 
was  impending  and  that  very  likely  I  should  need  help. 
Once  in  the  room  the  war  of  words  was  renewed,  my  sensi- 
tive and  unnerved  friend  standing  by  and  looking  anxiously 
on. 

"I  warn  you  once  more,"  said  I,  to  the  attendant,  "if  you 
touch  Mr.  Blank  I'll  punch  you  so  hard  you'll  wish  you 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  107 

hadn't."  The  attendant's  answer  was  an  immediate  at- 
tempt to  eject  Mr.  Blank  from  the  room  by  force.  Nothing 
could  be  more  automatic  than  my  action  at  that  time;  — 
indeed,  to  this  day  I  do  not  remember  performing  the  act 
itself.  What  I  remember  is  the  determination  to  perform 
it  and  the  subsequent  evidence  of  its  having  been  performed. 
I  remember  every  part  of  the  encounter  except  the  one  in- 
stant devoted  to  the  execution  of  my  predetermined  coup  de 
main.  At  all  events  I  had  already  made  up  my  mind  to  do 
a  certain  thing  if  the  attendant  did  a  certain  thing.  He  did 
the  one  and  I  did  the  other.  Almost  before  he  had  touched 
Mr.  Blank's  person  my  right  fist  struck  him  with  great  force 
in,  on,  or  about  the  left  eye.  It  was  then  that  I  became  the 
object  of  the  attendant's  attention  —  but  not  his  undivided 
attention  —  for,  as  he  was  choking  me,  my  unsuspected  ally 
stepped  up  and  paid  the  attendant  a  sincere  compliment  by 
likewise  choking  him.  In  the  scufHe  I  was  forced  to  the 
floor.  The  attendant  had  a  hand  upon  my  throat.  My 
ward-mate  had  both  hands  upon  the  attendant's  throat. 
Thus  was  formed  a  chain  with  a  weak,  if  not  a  missing,  link 
in  the  middle.  Picture  if  you  wiU  an  insane  man  being 
choked  by  a  supposedly  sane  man,  and  he  in  turn  being 
choked  by  a  temporarily  sane  insane  friend  of  the  assaulted 
one,  and  you  will  have  Nemesis  more  nearly  in  a  nutshell 
than  any  mere  rhetorician  has  yet  been  able  to  put  her. 

That  I  was  well  choked  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  my 
throat  bore  the  crescent-shaped  mark  of  my  assailant's 
thumb  nail.  And  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  my  rescuer, 
who  was  a  very  powerful  man,  made  a  decided  impression 
on  the  attendant's  throat.  Had  not  the  superintendent  op- 
portunely appeared  at  that  moment  the  attendant  might 
soon  have  lapsed  into  unconsciousness,  for  I  am  sure  my 
ally  would  never  have  released  him  until  he  should  have 


lo8  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

released  me.  The  moment  the  attendant  with  his  one  good 
eye  caught  sight  of  the  superintendent  the  scrimmage  ended. 
This  was  but  natural,  for  it  is  an  offense  against  the  code 
of  honor  generally  obtaining  among  attendants  that  one 
should  so  far  forget  himseK  as  to  abuse  patients  in  the  pres- 
ence of  sane  and  competent  witnesses. 

The  choking  which  I  had  just  received  only  served  to 
limber  my  vocal  cords.  I  told  the  doctor  all  about  the  pre- 
liminary verbal  skirmish  and  the  needlessness  of  the  fight. 
The  superintendent  had  graduated  at  Yale  over  fifty  years 
prior  to  my  own  graduation,  and  because  of  our  common 
interests  and  his  consummate  tact  we  got  along  well  together. 
But  his  friendly  interest  did  not  keep  him  from  speaking  his 
mind  upon  occasions,  as  his  words  at  this  time  proved.  "  You 
don't  know  how  it  grieves  me  to  see  you  —  a  Yale  man  — 
act  so  like  a  rowdy,"  said  he. 

"If  fighting  for  the  rights  of  a  much  older  man,  unable  to 
protect  his  own  interests,  is  the  act  of  a  rowdy,  I'm  quite 
wUling  to  be  thought  one,"  was  my  reply. 

Need  I  add  that  the  attendant  did  not  take  Mr.  Blank 
for  a  walk  that  morning?  Nor,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  the 
latter  ever  forced  again  to  take  his  exercise  against  his  will. 


I  have  devoted  much  space  to  the  foregoing  incident  be- 
cause it  represents  fairly  a  majority  of  the  assaults  now 
committed  in  our  asylums.  Had  the  attendant  possessed 
and  exercised  tact,  there  would  have  been  no  needless  as- 
sault committed  that  day.  In  my  opinion  the  number  of 
fights  or  assaults  caused  by  insane  patients  running  amuck 
is  smaller,  relatively,  than  the  number  of  fights  that  would 
naturally  occur  among  a  given  number  of  schoolboys,  full 
of  animal  spirits.    Nine  out  of  ten  of  the  hundreds  of  as- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  109 

saults  which  occur  annually  in  our  hospitals  and  asylums 
are  the  fault  of  the  attendants  rather  than  of  their  charges. 
It  is  therefore  evident  that  the  solution  of  the  problem  of 
eliminating  brutality  centers  in  the  attendants,  the  majority 
of  whom  to-day  are  deplorably  incompetent.  In  fact  the 
only  attendants  who  are  not  likely  at  times  to  commit  out- 
rages are  those  who  at  heart  are  believers  in  llHon- 
Restraint ; "  —  and  that  more  of  them  do  not  use  that 
humane  method  of  treatment  is  the  fault  of  the  doctors 
in  charge. 


XV 

The  superintendent  now  realized  that  I  was  altogether 
too  energetic  a  humanitarian  to  remain  in  a  ward  with  so 
many  other  patients.  My  actions  had  a  demoralizing  effect 
upon  them;  so  I  was  forthwith  transferred  to  a  private  room, 
one  of  two  situated  in  a  small  one-story  annex.  These  new 
quarters  were  rather  attractive,  and  not  unlike  a  conven- 
tional bachelor  apartment. 

As  there  was  no  one  here  with  whom  I  could  interfere  I 
got  along  without  making  any  disturbance  —  that  is,  so 
long  as  I  had  a  certain  special  attendant,  a  man  suited  to  my 
temperament.  He  who  was  now  placed  over  me  understood 
human  nature  and  could  recognize  it  even  in  an  insane  man. 
He  never  resorted  to  force  if  argument  failed  to  move  me; 
and  trifling  transgressions,  which  would  have  led  to  a  fight 
had  he  behaved  hke  a  typical  attendant,  he  either  ignored 
or  privately  reported  to  the  doctor.  This  competent  attend- 
ant, whom  I  Hked,  could  and  did  control  me  with  ease.  As 
it  is  in  the  world  at  large,  so  in  asylums  likes  and  dislikes 
are  usually  mutual.  Accordingly,  for  the  whole  period  of 
my  intense  excitement  there  were  certain  doctors  and  at- 
tendants who  could  control  me,  and  certain  other  doctors 
and  attendants  whose  presence  threw  me  into  a  state  border- 
ing on  rage,  and  frequently  into  passions  which  led  to  dis- 
tressing results.  To  place  over  me  those  I  hked,  rather  than 
attempt  to  make  me  adjust  my  unruly  personality  to  those 
I  hated,  would  have  cost  attention  and  perhaps  inconven- 
ience.  But  would  not  the  reward  have  been  worth  the  pains  ? 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  iii 

And  if  hospitals  exist  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  patients 
to  health,  was  I  not  of  right  entitled  to  all  such  benefits  ? 

Good  attendants  seldom  stay  long  at  their  work,  for  their 
rewards  are  insignificant,  if  not  insulting.  Unfortunately 
for  me,  my  good  attendant  soon  left  the  institution  to  accept 
a  more  attractive  business  offer.  He  left  without  even  a 
good-by  to  me.  Nothing  proves  more  conclusively  how 
important  to  me  would  have  been  his  retention  than  this 
abrupt  leave-taking  which  the  doctor  had  evidently  ordered, 
thinking  perhaps  that  the  prospect  of  a  change  of  attendants 
would  excite  me.  However,  I  caused  no  trouble  when  the 
substitution  was  made,  though  I  did  dislike  the  idea  of  hav- 
ing placed  over  me  a  man  with  whom  I  had  previously  had 
misunderstandings.  He  was  about  my  own  age  and  it  was  by 
no  means  so  easy  to  take  orders  from  him  as  it  had  been  to 
obey  his  immediate  predecessor  who  was  considerably  older 
than  myself.  Then,  too,  this  young  attendant  dishked  me 
because  of  the  many  disagreeable  things  I  had  said  to  him 
while  I  was  confined  in  a  general  ward.  He  weighed  about 
one  hundred  ninety  pounds  to  my  one  hundred  thirty,  and 
had  evidently  been  delegated  to  attend  me  because  of  his 
great  physical  strength.  But  I  am  incHned  to  think  that  a 
choice  based  on  mental  rather  than  physical  considerations 
would  have  been  wiser.  The  superintendent,  because  of 
his  advanced  age  and  ill  health,  had  been  obhged  again  to 
place  my  case  in  the  hands  of  the  assistant  physician,  and 
the  latter  gave  this  new  attendant  certain  orders.  What  I 
was  to  be  permitted  to  do,  and  what  not,  was  carefully 
specified.  These  orders,  many  of  them  unreasonable,  were 
carried  out  to  the  letter.  For  this  I  cannot  justly  blame  the 
attendant.  The  doctor  had  deprived  him  of  the  right  to 
exercise  what  judgment  he  had. 

At  this  period  I  required  but  little  sleep.     I  usually  spent 


112  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

part  of  the  night  drawing;  for  it  was  in  September,  1902, 
while  I  was  at  the  height  of  my  wave  of  self-centered  con- 
fidence, that  a  friend  who  came  to  see  me  had  given  me  a 
copy  of  Life.  And  as  I  had  already  decided  in  my  own 
mind  that  I  was  destined  to  become  a  writer  of  books  —  or 
at  least  of  one -book  ^^  I, thought  I  might  as  well  be  an  artist, 
too,  and  illustrate  my  own  productions..  In  school  I  had 
never  Qet^'^ 'for  draw^iiTg;  nor  at  college,  either,  where,  at 
the  Yale  Art  School,  I  took  a  compulsory  and  distasteful 
course  in  that  subject.  But  now  my  awakened  artistic  im- 
pulse was  irresistible.  My  first  self-imposed  lesson  was  a 
free-hand  copy  of  the  design  on  the  cover  of  Life,  includ- 
ing the  illustration.  Considering  the  circumstances,  that 
first  drawing  was  creditable,  though  I  cannot  now  prove  the 
assertion;  for  inconsiderate  attendants  destroyed  it,  with 
many  more  of  my  drawings  and  manuscripts.  From  the 
very  moment  I  completed  that  first  drawing,  honors  were 
divided  between  my  literary  and  artistic  impulses;  and  a 
letter  which,  in  due  time,  I  was  impelled  to  write  to  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State  incorporated  art  with  literature.  I  wrote 
and  read  several  hours  a  day  and  I  spent  as  many  more, 
drawing.  But  the  assistant  physician,  instead  of  making  it 
easy  for  me  to  rid  myseK  of  an  excess  of  energy  along  literary 
and  artistic  lines,  balked  me  at  every  turn,  and  seemed  to 
deKght  in  displaying  as  little  interest  as  possible  in  my  newly 
awakened  ambitions.  So  that  at  a  time  when  everything 
should  have  been  done  to  calm  my  abnormally  active  mind, 
a  studied  indifference  and  failure  to  protect  my  interests 
kept  me  in  a  state  of  constant  exasperation. 

But  circumstances  now  arose  which  brought  about  the 
imtimely  stifling  —  I  might  better  say  strangulation  —  of 
my  artistic  impulses.  The  doctors  were  led  —  unwisely,  I 
believe,  considering  their  methods  and  the  hospital's  equip- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  113 

ment  —  to  decide  that  absolute  seclusion  was  the  only  thing 
that  would  ease  my  over-active  brain.  In  consequence,  all 
writing  and  drawing  materials  and  all  books  were  taken  from 
me.  And  from  October  i8th  until  the  first  of  the  following 
January,  except  for  one  short  fortnight,  my  brain  was  left 
again  to  all  but  beat  itself  into  an  insane  condition,  either 
against  itself,  or  the  bare  walls  and  floors  of  the  small,  barred 
rooms  in  which  I  was  next  confined  —  hardly  better  than 
cells  in  a  State's  prison  and  in  some  instances  far  worse. 

A  corn-cob  was  the  determining  factor  at  this  crisis.  See- 
ing in  myself  an  embryonic  Raphael  I  had  a  habit  of 
preserving  all  kinds  of  odds  and  ends  as  souvenirs  of  my 
development.  These,  I  believed,  sanctified  by  my  Midas-like 
touch,  would  one  day  be  of  great  value.  If  the  pubHc  can 
tolerate,  as  it  does,  thousands  of  souvenir  hunters,  surely  an 
inmate  of  an  asylum  should  be  indulged  in  the  whim  for 
collecting  such  souvenirs  as  come  within  his  reach.  Among 
the  odds  and  ends  which  I  had  gathered  were  several  corn- 
cobs. These  I  intended  to  gild  and  make  useful  by  attach- 
ing to  them  smaU  thermometers.  If  they  seemed  valuable 
to  me  at  the  time,  that  fact  in  itself  should  have  been  reason 
enough  for  permitting  me  to  retain  them.  But,  on  the  morn- 
ing of  October  i8th,  my  athletic  attendant,  finding  them, 
forthwith  informed  me  that  he  should  throw  them  away. 
I  as  promptly  informed  him  that  any  such  action  on  his 
part  would  lead  to  a  fight.    And  so  it  did.^ 

1  Though  I  admit  that  the  impulse  to  collect  souvenirs  must  be  held  in 
check,  lest  a  patient's  room  become  a  sort  of  jimk-shop,  I  will  not  admit 
that  the  "  souvenir  habit"  can  best  be  cured  by  a  resort  to  force  —  and  abu- 
sive language.  A  tactful  appeal  to  a  patient's  sense  of  right  and  justice  will 
invariably  accomplish  a  better  and  more  lasting  result.  Witness  the  case 
of  the  attendant  whose  insane  charge  had  jumped  into  a  deep  river  with  the 
mad  desire  to  drown  himself.  "If  you  don't  come  back  here  I'll  lose  my 
job!"  shouted  the  attendant  in  desperation.  The  prospective  suicide  heard 
9 


114  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

When  this  fight  began  there  were  two  attendants  at  hand'. 
I  fought  them  both  to  a  standstill,  and  told  them  I  should 
continue  to  fight  until  the  assistant  physician  came  to  the 
ward.  Thereupon,  my  special  attendant,  realizing  that  I 
meant  what  I  said,  held  me  while  the  other  went  for  assist- 
ance. He  soon  returned,  not  with  the  assistant  physician, 
but  with  a  third  attendant,  and  the  fight  was  renewed.  The 
one  who  had  acted  as  messenger,  being  of  finer  fiber  than 
the  other  two,  stood  at  a  safe  distance.  It  was  of  course 
against  the  rules  of  the  institution  for  an  attendant  to  strike 
a  patient,  and,  as  I  was  sane  enough  to  report  with  a  fair 
chance  of  belief  any  forbidden  blows,  each  captor  had  to 
content  himself  with  holding  me  by  an  arm  and  attempting 
to  choke  me  into  submission.  However,  I  was  able  to  pre- 
vent them  from  getting  a  good  grip  on  my  throat,  and  for 
almost  ten  minutes  I  continued  to  fight,  telling  them  all  the 
time  that  I  would  not  desist  until  a  doctor  should  come. 
An  assistant  physician,  but  not  the  one  in  charge  of  my 
case,  finally  appeared.  He  ordered  the  attendants  to  place 
me  in  the  "violent  ward,"  which  adjoined  the  private  apart- 
ment I  was  then  occupying,  and  they  lost  no  time  in  lock- 
ing me  in  a  small  room  in  that  ward. 

This  first  fight  of  the  day  occurred  about  8  a.m.  —  a  fact 
which  should  be  noted,  for  October  i8th,  1902,  was  about 
the  busiest  day  of  my  life.  Three  fights  between  simrise 
and  sunset,  and  two  other  incidents  not  less  full  of  action, 
and  one  of  them  full  of  torture,  give  that  day  a  distinctive 
character. 

Friends  have  said  to  me:  "Well,  what  is  to  be  done 
with   an  insane    man  when  he  runs  amuck?"     The  best 

the  appeal,  swam  ashore,  was  saved,  and  to-day  enjoys  health  and  freedom. 
The  truth  of  this  incident  is  vouched  for  by  Dr.  Adolf  Meyer,  of  New  York. 


A  MIND   THAT   FOUND   ITSELF  115 

answer  I   can  make   is:  "Do   nothing  to   make   him   run 
amuck." 

A  man  in  the  condition  in  which  I  was  during  the  period 
of  my  elation  is  a  spoiled  child.  If  he  wants  a  thing,  harm- 
less to  himself  and  to  others,  he  should  have  it.  A  hospital 
for  the  insane  must  answer  many  of  the  purposes  of  a  kin- 
dergarten and,  at  times,  may  well  be  turned  into  one.  The 
greater  initial  expenditure  entailed  in  the  individual  treat- 
ment of  a  case  would  be  offset  by  the  more  rapid  recovery 
and  earlier  discharge  of  the  patient.  While  I  was  on  the 
rampage,  not  more  than  four  or  five  others  under  the  care 
of  the  assistant  physician  required  especial  attention.  But  I 
required  it,  and,  realizing  this,  I  did  my  best  to  get  it. 
Certain  psychiatrists  support  me  in  the  opinion  that 
had  I  had  an  attendant  with  the  wisdom  and  ability  to 
humor  me  and  permit  me  to  keep  my  priceless  corn-cobs, 
the  fight  in  question,  and  the  worse  events  that  followed, 
would  not  have  occurred  —  not  that  day,  nor  ever,  I  believe, 
had  I  at  all  times  been  properly  treated  by  those  in  charge 
of  me. 

So  again  I  foimd  myself  in  the  violent  ward  —  but  this 
time  not  because  of  any  desire  to  investigate  it.  Art  and 
literature  being  now  more  engrossing  than  my  plans  for  re- 
form, I  became,  in  truth,  an  unwilling  occupant  of  a  room 
in  a  ward  devoid  of  even  a  suggestion  of  the  aesthetic.  The 
room  itself  was  clean,  and  under  other  circumstances  might 
have  been  cheerful.  It  was  twelve  feet  long,  seven  feet 
wide,  and  twelve  high.  A  cluster  of  incandescent  lights, 
enclosed  in  a  semi-spherical  glass  globe,  depended  from  the 
ceiling.  The  walls  were  bare  and  plainly  wainscotted, 
and  one  large  window,  barred  without,  gave  light.  At 
one  side  of  the  door  was  an  opening  a  foot  square  with  a 


ii6  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

door  of  its  own  which  could  be  opened  only  from  without, 
and  through  which  food  could  be  passed  to  a  supposedly 
dangerous  patient.  Aside  from  an  iron  cot  bed,  screwed 
to  the  floor,  the  room  had  no  furniture. 

The  attendant,  before  locking  me  in,  searched  me  and  took 
from  me  several  lead  pencils;  but  the  stub  of  one  escaped  his 
vigilance.  Naturally,  to  be  taken  from  a  handsomely  fur- 
nished apartment  and  thrust  into  such  a  bare  and  unattrac- 
tive room  as  this,  caused  my  already  heated  blood  to 
approach  the  boiling  point.  Consequently,  my  first  thought 
was  to  send  a  note  to  the  physician  who  regularly  had 
charge  of  my  case,  requesting  him  to  visit  me  as  soon  as  he 
should  arrive  —  and  I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  the 
note  was  delivered.  Whether  or  not  this  was  so,  a  report 
of  the  morning's  fight  and  my  transfer  must  have  reached 
him  by  some  one  of  the  several  witnesses.  While  waiting 
for  an  answer,  I  busied  myself  writing,  and  as  I  had  no 
better  supply  of  stationery  I  wrote  on  the  walls.  Begin- 
ning as  high  at  I  could  reach  I  wrote  in  columns,  each  about 
three  feet  wide.  Soon  the  pencil  became  dull.  But  dull 
pencils  are  easily  sharpened  on  the  whetstone  of  wit.  Stifling 
acquired  traits,  I  permitted  myself  to  revert  momentarily  to 
a  primitive  expedient.  I  gnawed  the  wood  quite  from  the 
pencil,  leaving  only  the  graphite  core.  With  a  bit  of  graphite 
a  hand  guided  by  the  unerring  insolence  of  elation  may  ar- 
tistically damn  aU  men  and  things.  That  I  am  inclined  to 
beheve  I  did;  and  I  question  whether  Raphael  or  Michael 
Angelo  —  upon  whom  I  then  looked  as  mere  predecessors 
—  ever  put  more  feeHng  per  square  foot  into  their  mural 
masterpieces. 

Every  Httle  while,  as  if  to  punctuate  my  composition,  and 
in  a  vain  endeavor  to  get  attention,  I  kicked  the  door  vigor- 
ously.    Knowing  the  history  of  my  case,  the  assistant  physi- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  117 

cian  when  he  learned  of  my  transfer  should  have  made  a 
special  visit.  But  this  he  neglected  to  do.  Not  until  eleven 
o'clock,  on  his  regular  round  of  inspection,  did  he  come  near 
me.  As  a  result  I  was  left  for  three  hours  to  thrash  around 
that  room  and  work  myself  into  a  state  of  desperate  rage.  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  compel  attention.  A  month  earlier, 
shattered  glass  had  enabled  me  to  accompHsh  a  certain  sane 
purpose.  Again  this  day  it  served  me.  The  opalescent 
globe  at  the  ceiHng  seemed  to  be  the  most  vulnerable  point 
for  attack.  How  to  reach  and  smash  it  was  the  next  ques- 
tion —  and  soon  answered.  Taking  off  my  shoes  I  threw 
one  with  great  force  at  my  glass  target  and  succeeded  in 
striking  it  a  destructive  blow. 

When  attendants'  ears  become  as  nicely  attuned  to  the 
suppliant  cries  of  neglected  patients  as  they  now  are  to  the 
summoning  sound  of  breaking  glass,  many  of  the  abuses  of 
which  I  complain  will  cease  forever  to  be  heard  of.  The 
attendants  charged  upon  my  room.  Their  entrance  was 
momentarily  delayed  by  the  door  which  stuck  fast.  I  was 
standing  near  it,  and  when  it  gave  way  its  edge  struck  me  on 
the  forehead  with  force  enough  to  have  fractured  my  skull 
had  it  struck  a  weaker  part.  The  attendants  were  unable 
to  see  me,  and  for  this  hurt  no  blame  attached  to  them,  ex- 
cept in  so  far  as  it  was  the  indirect  result  of  their  continued 
neglect  of  me. 

Once  in  the  room  the  two  attendants  threw  me  on  the  bed 
and  choked  me  so  severely  that  I  could  feel  my  eyes  start- 
ing from  their  sockets.  When  attendants  choke  patients 
they  do  so  in  a  bungling  manner  —  even  those  who  have 
conducted  the  brutal  operation  often  enough  to  have  mas- 
tered the  technique  of  it.  As  it  was,  a  clumsy  fellow  filled 
his  fist  with  most  of  the  muscles  in  my  neck  and  then  pro- 
ceeded to  manipulate  my  throat  much  as  one  would  squeeze 


Ii8  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

a  sponge.  The  attendants  then  put  the  room  in  order;  re- 
moved the  glass — that  is,  all  except  one  small  and  apparently 
innocent,  but  as  the  event  proved  well-nigh  fatal,  piece,  — 
took  my  shoes  and  again  locked  me  in  my  room  —  not  for- 
getting, however,  to  curse  me  well  for  making  them  work 
for  their  living. 

When  the  assistant  physician  finally  appeared  I  met  him 
with  a  blast  of  invective  which,  in  view  of  the  events  which 
quickly  followed,  must  have  blown  out  whatever  spark  of 
kindly  feeling  toward  me  he  may  have  ever  entertained.  I 
demanded  that  he  permit  me  to  send  word  to  my  conserva- 
tor asking  him  to  come  at  once  and  look  after  my  interests, 
for  I  was  being  unfairly  treated.  I  also  demanded  that  he 
request  the  superintendent  to  visit  me  at  once,  as  I  intended 
to  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  assistant  physicians  or  at- 
tendants who  were  neglecting  and  abusing  me.  He  yielded 
to  neither  demand. 

The  bit  of  glass,  which  the  attendants  had  overlooked, 
was  as  large  as  my  thumb  nail.  If  I  remember  rightly  it 
was  not  a  part  of  the  broken  globe.  It  was  a  piece  that  had 
probably  been  hidden  by  a  former  occupant,  in  a  comer  of 
the  square  opening  at  the  side  of  the  door.  At  all  events, 
if  the  pen  is  the  tongue  of  a  ready  writer,  so  may  a  piece  of 
glass  be,  under  given  conditions.  As  the  thought  I  had  in 
mind  seemed  an  immortal  one  I  decided  to  etch,  rather  than 
write  with  fugitive  graphite.  On  the  topmost  panel  of  the 
door,  which  a  few  minutes  before  had  dealt  me  so  vicious  a 
blow,  I  scratched  a  seven-word  sentiment  —  sincere,  if  not 
classic:  "God  bless  our  Home,  which  is  Hell." 

The  violent  exercise  of  the  morning  had  given  me  a  good 
appetite  and  I  ate  my  dinner  with  relish,  though  with  some 
difficulty,  for  the  choking  had  lamed  my  throat.  On  serving 
this  dinner  the  attendants  again  left  me  to  my  own  devices. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  119 

The  early  part  of  the  afternoon  I  spent  in  vain  endeavors  to 
induce  them  to  take  notes  to  the  superintendent  and  his 
assistant.  They  continued  to  ignore  me.  By  sundown  the 
furious  excitement  of  the  morning  had  given  place  to  what 
might  be  called  a  deliberative  excitement,  which,  if  anything, 
was  more  effective.  It  was  but  a  few  days  earlier  that  I  had 
discussed  my  case  with  the  assistant  physician  and  told  him 
all  about  the  suicidal  impulse  which  had  been  so  strong 
during  my  entire  period  of  depression.  I  now  reasoned  that 
a  seeming  attempt  at  suicide,  a  "fake"  suicide,  would  frighten 
the  attendants  into  calling  this  doctor  whose  presence  I  now 
desired  —  and  desired  the  more  because  of  his  persistent 
indifference.  No  man  that  ever  lived  loved  life  more  than 
I  did  on  that  day,  and  my  mock  tragedy  which  I  successfully 
played  about  dusk  was,  I  believe,  as  good  a  farce  as  was  ever 
perpetrated.  If  I  had  any  one  ambition  it  was  to  live  long 
enough  to  regain  my  freedom  and  put  behind  iron  bars  this 
doctor  and  his  tools,  the  attendants.  To  compel  attention 
—  that  was  my  object. 

At  that  season  the  sun  set  by  half-past  five  and  supper  was 
usually  served  about  that  time.  So  dark  was  my  room  then 
that  objects  in  it  could  scarcely  be  distinguished.  About  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  before  the  attendant  was  due  to  appear 
with  my  evening  meal  I  made  my  preparations.  That  the 
stage  setting  might  be  in  keeping  with  the  plot,  I  tore  up 
such  papers  as  I  had  with  me,  and  also  destroyed  other  ar- 
ticles in  the  room  —  as  one  might  in  a  frenzy;  and  to  com- 
plete the  illusion  of  desperation,  deliberately  broke  my  watch. 
I  then  took  off  my  suspenders,  and  tying  one  end  to  the  head 
of  the  bedstead  made  a  noose  of  the  other.  This  I  adjusted 
comfortably  about  my  throat.  At  the  crucial  moment  I 
placed  my  pillow  on  the  floor  beside  the  head  of  the  bed 
and  sat  on  it  —  for  this  was  to  be  an  easy  death.    I  then 


I20  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

bore  just  enough  weight  on  the  improvised  noose  to  give  all  a 
plausible  look.  And  a  last  life-like  (or  rather  death-like) 
touch  I  added  by  gurgling  as  in  infancy's  happy  days. 

No  schoolboy  ever  enjoyed  a  prank  more  than  I  enjoyed 
this  one.  Soon  I  heard  the  step  of  the  attendant,  bringing  my 
supper.  When  he  opened  the  door  he  had  no  idea  that  any- 
thing unusual  was  happening  within.  Coming  as  he  did 
from  a  well  lighted  room  into  one  that  was  dark  it  took  him 
several  seconds  to  grasp  the  situation  —  and  then  he  failed 
really  to  take  it  in,  for  he  at  once  supposed  me  to  be  in  a  semi- 
unconscious  condition  from  strangulation.  In  a  state  of 
great  excitement  this  brute  of  the  morning  called  to  his 
brute-partner  and  I  was  soon  released  from  what  was  nothing 
more  than  an  amusing  position,  though  they  believed  it  one 
of  torture.  The  vile  curses  with  which  they  had  addressed 
me  in  the  morning  were  now  silenced.  They  spoke  kindly 
and  expressed  regret  that  I  should  have  seen  fit  to  resort  to 
such  an  act.  Their  sympathy  was  as  genuine  as  such  men 
can  feel,  but  a  poor  kind  at  best,  for  it  was  excited  by  the 
thought  of  what  might  be  the  consequences  to  them  of  their 
own  neglect.  While  this  unwonted  stress  of  emotion  threat- 
ened the  attendants'  peace  of  mind  I  continued  to  play  my 
part,  pretending  to  be  all  but  unconscious. 

Shortly  after  thus  rescuing  me  from  a  very  living  death, 
the  attendants  picked  me  up  and  carried  my  limp  body  and 
laughing  soul  to  an  adjoining  room,  where  I  was  tenderly 
placed  upon  a  bed.     I  seemed  gradually  to  revive. 

"What  did  you  do  it  for?"  asked  one  of  the  attendants. 

"What's  the  use  of  living  in  a  place  like  this,  to  be  abused 
as  I've  been  to-day?"  I  asked.  "You  and  the  doctor  ignore 
me  and  aU  my  requests.  Even  a  cup  of  water  between  meals 
is  denied  me,  and  other  requests  which  you  have  no  right 
to  refuse.     Had  I  killed  myself,  both  of  you  would  have  been 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  1 21 

discharged.  And  if  my  relatives  and  friends  had  ever  found 
out  how  you  had  abused  and  neglected  me  it  is  likely  you 
would  have  been  arrested  and  prosecuted." 

Word  had  already  been  sent  to  the  assistant  physician. 
He  hurried  to  the  ward,  his  almost  breathless  condition 
showing  how  my  farce  had  been  mistaken  for  a  real  tragedy. 
The  moment  he  entered  I  abandoned  the  part  I  had  been 
playing. 

"Now  that  I  have  you  three  brutes  where  I  want  you  I'll 
tell  you  a  few  things  you  don't  know,"  said  I.  "You  prob- 
ably think  I've  just  tried  to  kill  myself.  It  was  simply  a 
ruse  to  make  you  give  me  some  attention.  When  I  make 
threats  and  tell  you  that  my  one  object  in  life  is  to  live  long 
enough  to  regain  my  freedom  and  lay  bare  the  abuses  which 
abound  in  hospitals  for  the  insane  you  simply  laugh  at  me, 
don't  you?  But  the  fact  is,  that's  my  ambition,  and  if  you 
knew  anything  at  all  you'd  know  that  abuse  won't  drive  me 
to  suicide.  You  can  continue  to  abuse  me  and  deprive  me 
of  my  rights,  and  keep  me  in  exile  from  relatives  and  friends, 
but  the  time  will  come  when  I  '11  make  you  sweat  for  all  this. 
I'll  put  you  in  prison  where  you  belong.  Or  if  I  fail  to  do 
that,  I  can  at  least  bring  about  your  discharge  from  this  in- 
stitution.    What's  more,  I  will." 

The  doctor  and  attendants  now  took  my  threats  with 
characteristic  nonchalance.  Such  threats,  often  enough 
heard  in  such  places,  make  Httle  or  no  impression,  for 
they  are  seldom  made  good.  Most  of  those  subjected  to 
abuse  and  neglect  never  regain  their  freedom;  or,  if  they 
do,  have  not  an  accurate  enough  memory,  or  a  stout  enough 
heart,  to  support  any  inclination  they  may  have  to  proceed 
to  action.  When  I  made  these  threats  I  really  wished  to 
put  these  men  in  prison.  To-day  I  have  no  such  desire, 
for  were   they  not  victims  of  the  same  vicious  system  of 


122  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

treatment  to  which  I  was  subjected?  In  every  institution 
conducted  on  the  principles  of  "Restraint"  the  very  atmos- 
phere is  brutalizing.  Place  a  bludgeon  in  the  hand  of  any 
man,  with  instructions  to  use  it  when  necessary,  and  the 
gentler  and  more  humane  methods  of  persuasion  are  natu- 
rally forgotten  or  deliberately  abandoned. 


Throughout  my  period  of  elation,  especially  the  first  months 
of  it  when  I  was  doing  the  work  of  several  normal  men,  I 
required  an  increased  amount  of  fuel  to  generate  the  abnor- 
mal energy  my  activity  demanded.  I  had  the  characteristic 
voracious  appetite,  and  I  now  insisted  that  the  attendant  give 
me  the  supper  which  he  was  about  to  serve  when  he  discov- 
ered me  in  the  simulated  throes  of  death.  At  first  he  re- 
fused, but  finally  relented  and  brought  me  a  cup  of  tea  and 
some  buttered  bread.  Because  of  the  severe  choking 
administered  earlier  in  the  day  it  was  with  difficulty  that  I 
swallowed  any  food.  I  had  to  eat  slowly.  The  attendant, 
however,  ordered  me  to  hurry  and  threatened  otherwise  to 
take  what  little  supper  I  had.  I  told  him  that  I  thought  he 
would  not  —  that  I  was  entitled  to  my  supper  and  intended 
to  eat  it  with  as  much  comfort  as  possible.  This  nettled 
him,  and  by  a  sudden  and  unexpected  move  he  managed  to 
take  from  me  all  but  a  crust  of  bread.  Even  that  he  tried 
to  snatch.  I  resisted  and  the  third  fight  of  the  day  was  soon 
on,  —  and  that  within  five  minutes  of  the  time  the  doctor 
had  left  the  ward.  At  the  time  I  was  seated  on  the  bed. 
The  attendant,  true  to  his  vicious  instincts,  grasped  my 
throat  and  choked  me  with  the  full  power  of  a  hand  accus- 
tomed to  that  unmanly  work.  His  partner,  in  the  mean- 
time, had  rendered  me  helpless  by  holding  me  flat  on  my  back 
while  the  attacking  party  choked  me  into  breathless  submis- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  123 

sion.  The  first  fight  of  the  day  was  caused  by  a  corn-cob; 
this  of  the  evening  by  a  crust  of  bread.  Insignificant  things 
—  but  eloquent  evidence.  In  each  instance  an  insane  man, 
conscious  of  his  rights,  was  assaulted  by  two  sane  but  un- 
trained and  unfeeling  men  whose  brutal  methods  were  coun- 
tenanced by  a  sane  physician. 

Were  I  to  close  the  record  of  events  of  that  October  day 
with  an  account  of  the  assault  just  described,  few,  if  any, 
would  imagine  that  I  had  failed  to  mention  all  the  abuse  to 
which  I  was  that  day  subjected.  The  fact  is  that  not  the 
half  has  been  told.  As  the  handling  of  me  within  the  twenty- 
four  hours  typifies  the  worst,  but,  nevertheless,  the  not  un- 
usual treatment  of  all  patients  in  a  Hke  condition,  I  feel 
constrained  to  describe  minutely  the  torture  which  was  my 
portion  that  night.  I  would  prefer  not  to  deal  at  such 
length  with  so  distressing  a  subject,  but  to  yield  to  that 
preference  would  not  be  the  way  of  truth.  There  are 
abuses  to  be  corrected  and  they  must  be  laid  bare  by  one 
with  personal  and  painful  knowledge  of  them.  Non-com- 
batants may  with  propriety  discuss  the  buzzing  of  a  mos- 
quito, but  the  ominous  sound  of  the  bullet  can  best  be 
described  by  a  man  who  has  been  on  the  firing-line. 

After  that  supper-fight  I  was  left  alone  in  my  room  for 
about  an  hour.  Then  the  assistant  physician,  the  two  at- 
tendants, and  a  third  attendant  entered.  One  of  the  attend- 
ants carried  a  canvas  contrivance  known  as  a  camisole.  A 
camisole  is  a  type  of  strait- jacket;  and  a  very  convenient 
type  it  is  for  those  who  resort  to  such  methods  of  restraint,^ 

*  There  are  several  methods  of  restraint  in  use,  chief  among  them: 
"mechanical  restraint"  and  so-called  "chemical  restraint."  The  former  con- 
sists in  the  use  of  instruments  of  restraint,  namely,  strait- jackets  or  cami- 
soles, "muffs,"  straps,  "mittens,"  "restraint"  or  "strong"  sheets,  etc., — 


124  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

for  it  enables  them  to  deny  the  use  of  strait-jackets  at  all. 
A  strait- jacket,  indeed,  is  not  a  camisole,  just  as  electrocu- 
tion is  not  hanging. 

When  I  planned  my  ruse  of  the  afternoon  I  knew  perfectly 
^  well  that  I  should  soon  find  myself  in  a  strait- jacket.     The 
^>  thought  rather  took  my  fancy,  for  I  was  resolved  to  know 
-~   the  inner  workings  of  the  violent  ward ;  and  as  my  purpose  in 
)  life  was  eventually  to  bring  about  reform,  I  bore  the  more 
/  wilhngly,  sometimes  even  cheerfully,  much  of  the  abuse  to 
which  I  was  subjected.     But  the  fact  that  my  transgressions 
of  rules  were  frequently  dehberate  in  no  way  excuses  those 
in  authority.     For  in  no  other  respect  did  my  acts  —  un- 
questionably those  of  an  insane  man  —  differ  from  those  of 
other  patients,  —  except,  perhaps,  that  I  was  able  to  avoid 
their  repetition  and  thus  escape  much  of  the  punishment 
which  falls  to  the  lot  of  those  who  know  not  what  they  do. 
If  what  I  am  about  to  relate  arouses  sympathy,  I  trust  that 
it  will  be  bestowed  upon  the  irresponsible  patients  in  whose 
behalf  I  speak  —  not  wasted  on  one  who  no  longer  needs  it. 
The  piece  of  glass  with  which  I  had  that  morning  written 
the  motto  already  quoted  I  had  appropriated  for  a  purpose. 

all  of  them  instruments  of  neglect  and  torture.  "Chemical  restraint" 
(sometimes,  but  improperly,  dignified  by  the  term  "medical  restraint") 
consists  in  the  unwise  use  of  temporarily  paralyzing  drugs,  —  hyoscine  being 
the  popular  "dose."  By  the  use  of  such  drugs  a  troublesome  patient  may 
be  rendered  unconscious  and  kept  so  for  hours  at  a  time.  Indeed,  very 
troublesome  patients  (especially  when  attendants  are  scarce)  are  not  infre- 
quently kept  in  a  stupefied  condition  for  days,  or  even  for  weeks,  —  but  only 
in  institutions  where  the  welfare  of  the  patients  is  lightly  regarded.  In- 
vestigators should  remember  that  the  less  conspicuous  "chemical  restraint" 
is  oftentimes  used  as  a  substitute  for  the  more  spectacular  and  easily 
detected  "mechanical  restraint,"  —  and,  to  the  untrained  observer,  shows 
only  on  the  drug  bill.  By  its  use  any  unprincipled  management  may  fool 
the  public.  Therefore  the  mere  absence  of  m^echanical  instruments  of 
restraint  cannot  be  taken  as  proof  that  an  institution  is  conducted  on  Non- 
Restraint  principles. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  125 

Knowing  that  I  should  soon  be  put  in  the  uncomfortable,  but 
not  necessarily  intolerable,  embrace  of  a  strait- jacket,  my 
thought  was  that  I  might  during  the  night,  in  some  way  or 
other,  use  this  piece  of  glass  to  advantage  —  perhaps  cut 
my  way  to  a  hmited  freedom.  To  make  sure  that  I  should 
retain  possession  of  it,  I  placed  it  in  my  mouth  and  held  it 
snugly  against  my  cheek.  Its  presence  there  did  not  inter- 
fere with  my  speech ;  nor  did  it  invite  visual  detection.  But 
had  I  known  as  much  about  camisoles  and  their  adjustment 
as  I  learned  later,  I  should  have  resorted  to  no  such  futile 
expedient. 

A  camisole,  or,  as  I  prefer  to  stigmatize  it,  a  strait- jacket, 
is  really  a  tight-fitting  coat  of  heavy  canvas,  reaching  from 
neck  to  waist,  constructed,  however,  on  no  ordinary  pattern. 
There  is  not  a  button  on  it.  The  sleeves  are  closed  at  the 
ends,  and  the  jacket,  having  no  opening  in  front,  is  adjusted 
and  tightly  laced  behind.  To  the  end  of  each  blind  sleeve 
is  attached  a  strong  cord.  The  cord  on  the  right  sleeve  is 
carried  to  the  left  of  the  body,  and  the  cord  on  the  left  sleeve 
is  carried  to  the  right  of  the  body.  Both  are  then  drawn 
tightly  behind,  thus  bringing  the  arms  of  the  victim  into  a 
folded  position  across  his  chest.  These  cords  are  then 
securely  tied. 

After  many  nights  of  torture,  this  jacket,  at  my  urgent  and 
repeated  request,  was  finally  adjusted  in  such  manner  that 
had  it  been  so  adjusted  at  first,  I  need  not  have  suffered  any 
torture  at  all.  This  I  knew  at  the  time,  for  I  had  not  failed 
to  discuss  the  matter  with  a  patient  who  on  several  occasions 
had  been  restrained  in  this  same  jacket.  It  is  the  abuse 
rather  than  the  use  of  such  instruments  of  restraint  against 
which  I  inveigh.  Yet  it  is  hardly  worth  whUe  to  distinguish 
between  "use"  and  "abuse,"  for  it  is  a  fact  that  where  the 
use  of  mechanical  restraint  is  permitted,  abuse  is  bound  to 


126  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

follow.  The  very  fact  that  there  are  institutions  —  many 
of  them  at  this  time  —  where  no  such  restraint  is  ever  re- 
sorted to,  leads  me  to  dwell  at  length  on  the  experiences  of 
this  night;  for  I  would,  if  I  could,  strike  the  final  blow 
which  shall  drive  these  instruments  of  torture  from  all  hos- 
pitals for  the  insane. 

Had  not  the  element  of  personal  spite  entered  into  the 
assistant  physician's  treatment  of  me  on  this  occasion,  I 
should  now  be  pleased  to  give  him  the  benefit  of  every  doubt. 
But  there  are  no  doubts;  and  for  the  enlightenment  of  all 
men  of  his  type  —  and  the  public  —  I  shall  point  out  his 
errors.  The  man's  personality  was  apparently  dual.  His 
"Jekyll"  personality  was  the  one  most  in  evidence,  but  it 
was  the  "Hyde"  personality  that  seemed  to  control  his  ac- 
tions when  a  crisis  arose.  It  was  "Doctor  Jekyll"  who 
approached  my  room  that  night,  accompanied  by  the  attend- 
ants. The  moment  he  entered  my  room  he  became  "Mr. 
Hyde."  He  was,  indeed,  no  longer  a  doctor,  or  the  sem- 
blance of  one.  His  first  move  was  to  take  the  strait- jacket 
in  his  own  hands  and  order  me  to  stand.  Knowing  that 
those  in  authority  really  believed  that  I  had  that  day  at- 
tempted to  kill  myself,  I  found  no  fault  with  their  wish  to 
put  me  in  restraint ;  but  I  did  object  to  having  this  done  by 
Jekyll-Hyde.  Though  a  strait-jacket  should  always  be 
adjusted  by  the  physician  in  charge,  I  knew  that  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  disagreeable  duty  was  invariably  delegated  to 
the  attendants.  Consequently  Jekyll-Hyde's  eagerness  to 
assume  an  obligation  he  usually  shirked  inspired  me  with  the 
feeling  that  his  motives  were  spiteful.  For  that  reason  I 
preferred  to  entrust  myself  to  the  uncertain  mercies  of  a 
regular  attendant;  and  I  said  so,  but  in  vain.  "If  you  will 
keep  your  mouth  shut  I'll  be  able  to  do  this  job  quicker," 
said  Jekyll-Hyde. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  127 

"I'll  shut  my  mouth  as  soon  as  you  get  out  of  this  room 
and  not  before,"  said  I.  Nor  did  I.  My  abusive  language 
was,  of  course,  interlarded  with  the  inevitable  epithets.  Yet 
these  should  not  have  annoyed  the  doctor  at  all,  and  would 
not,  had  he  judged  them  fairly.  The  more  I  talked  the  more 
vindictive  he  became.  He  said  nothing,  but,  unhappily  for 
me,  he  expressed  his  pent-up  feelings  in  something  more 
effectual  than  words.  After  he  had  laced  the  jacket,  and 
drawn  my  arms  across  my  chest  so  snugly  that  I  could  not 
move  them  a  fraction  of  an  inch,  I  asked  him  to  loosen  the 
strait-jacket  enough  to  enable  me  at  least  to  take  a  full 
breath.  I  also  requested  him  to  give  me  a  chance  to  dis- 
entangle my  fingers  which  had  been  caught  in  an  unnatural 
and  uncomfortable  position. 

"If  you  will  keep  still  a  minute,  I  will,"  said  Jekyll-Hyde. 
I  obeyed,  and  willingly  too,  for  I  did  not  care  to  suffer  more 
than  was  necessary.  Instead  of  loosening  the  strait-jacket 
as  agreed,  this  doctor,  now  livid  with  rage,  drew  the  cords, 
in  such  a  way  that  I  found  myself  more  securely  and  cruelly  \^ 
held  than  before.  This  breach  of  faith  threw  me  into  a 
frenzy.  Though  it  was  because  his  continued  presence 
served  to  aggravate  my  condition  that  Jekyll-Hyde  at  last 
withdrew,  it  will  be  observed  that  he  did  not  do  so  until  he 
had  satisfied  an  unmanly  desire  which  an  apparently  lurking 
hatred  had  engendered.  'The  attendants  soon  withdrew 
and  locked  me  up  for  the  night. 

No  one  incident  of  my  whole  life  has  ever  impressed  itself 
more  indelibly  on  my  memory.  Within  one  hour's  time  I  ( 
was  suffering  pain  as  intense  as  any  I  ever  endured,  and  be- 
fore the  night  had  passed  that  pain  had  become  almost 
unbearable.  My  right  hand  was  so  held  that  the  tip  of  one 
of  my  fingers  was  all  but  cut  by  the  nail  of  another,  and  soon 
knife-like  pains  began  to  shoot  through  my  right  arm  as  far 


128  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

as  the  shoulder.  If  there  be  any  so  curious  as  to  wish  to  get 
a  slight  idea  of  my  agony,  let  him  bite  a  finger  tip  as  hard  as 
he  can  without  drawing  blood.  Let  him  continue  the  op- 
eration for  two  or  three  minutes.  Then  let  him  multiply 
that  effect,  if  he  can,  by  two  or  three  hundred.  In  my 
case,  after  four  or  five  hours  the  excess  of  pain  rendered 
me  partially  insensible  to  it.  But  for  nine  hundred  min- 
utes —  fifteen  consecutive  hours  —  I  remained  in  that 
strait-jacket;  and  not  until  the  twelfth  hour,  about  break- 
fast time  the  next  morning,  did  an  attendant  so  much  as 
loosen  a  cord. 

During  the  first  seven  or  eight  hours,  excruciating  pains 
racked  not  only  my  arms,  but  most  of  my  body.  For  the 
first  and  only  time  in  my  life  I  had  hysterics.  And,  though 
I  cried  and  moaned,  in  fact,  screamed  so  loudly  that  the 
attendants  must  have  heard  me,  little  attention  was  paid  to 
me, — probably  because  of  the  strict  orders  from  "Mr. 
Hyde,"  after  he  had  again  assumed  the  r61e  of  "Doctor 
Jekyll."  I  even  begged  the  attendants  to  loosen  the  jacket 
enough  to  ease  me  a  little.  This  they  refused  to  do,  and  they 
seemed  to  enjoy  being  in  a  position  to  add  their  consider- 
able mite  to  my  torture. 

Before  midnight  I  really  believed  that  I  should  be  unable 
to  endure  the  torture  and  retain  my  reason.  A  peculiar 
pricking  sensation  which  I  now  felt  in  my  brain,  a  sensation 
exactly  like  that  of  June,  1900,  led  me  to  believe  that  I  might 
again  be  thrown  out  of  touch  with  the  world  I  had  so  lately 
regained.  Realizing  the  awfulness  of  that  fate  I  redoubled 
my  efforts  to  effect  my  rescue.  Shortly  after  midnight  I 
did  succeed  in  gaining  the  attention  of  the  night-watch. 
Upon  entering  my  room  he  found  me  flat  on  the  floor.  I 
had  fallen  from  the  bed  and  perforce  remained  absolutely 
helpless  where  I  lay.    I  could  not  so  much  as  lift  my  head. 


A  MIND   THAT   FOUND   ITSELF  129 

This,  however,  was  not  the  fault  of  the  strait-jacket.  It 
was  because  I  could  not  control  the  muscles  of  my  neck 
which  that  day  had  been  so  mauled.  I  could  scarcely  swal- 
low the  water  the  night-watch  was  good  enough  to  give  me. 
This  night-watch  was  not  a  bad  sort  of  fellow;  yet  even  he 
refused  to  loosen  the  strait-jacket  a  fraction  of  an  inch.  As 
he  seemed  sympathetic,  I  can  attribute  his  refusal  to  nothing 
but  strict  orders  issued  by  the  assistant  physician. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  I  placed  a  piece  of  glass  in  my 
mouth  before  the  strait-jacket  was  adjusted.  At  midnight 
the  glass  was  still  there.  After  the  refusal  of  the  night- 
watch,  I  said  to  him:  "Then  I  want  you  to  go  to  Doctor 
Jekyll"  (I,  of  course,  called  him  by  his  right  name;  but  to 
do  so  now  would  be  to  prove  myself  as  brutal  as  Mr.  Hyde 
himself).  "Tell  him  to  come  here  at  once  and  loosen  this 
jacket.  I  can't  endure  the  torture  much  longer.  After 
fighting  two  years  to  regain  my  reason,  I  believe  I'll  lose  my 
mind  again.  You  have  always  treated  me  kindly.  For 
God's  sake,  get  the  doctor!" 

"I  can't  leave  the  main  building  at  this  time,"  said  the 
night-watch.  (Jekyll-Hyde  lived  in  a  house  about  one- 
eighth  of  a  mile  distant,  but  within  the  hospital  grounds.) 

"Will  you  then  take  a  message  to  the  assistant  physician 
who  stays  here?"  (One  of  the  two  assistant  physicians 
had  apartments  in  the  main  building.) 

"I'll  do  that,"  he  replied. 

"Tell  him  how  I'm  suffering.  Ask  him  to  please  come 
here  at  once  and  ease  this  strait- jacket.  If  he  doesn't  I'll 
be  as  crazy  by  morning  as  I  ever  was.  Also  tell  him  I'll 
kill  myself  unless  he  comes,  and  I  can  do  it,  too.  I  have  a 
piece  of  glass  in  this  room  and  I  know  just  what  I'll  do 
with  it." 

The  night-watch  was   as  good   as  his  word.     He  after- 


I30 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


wards  told  me  that  he  had  delivered  my  message.  The 
doctor  ignored  it.  He  did  not  come  near  me  that  night, 
nor  the  next  day,  nor  did  Jekyll-Hyde  appear  until  his  usual 
round  of  inspection  about  eleven  o'clock  the  next  morning. 

"I  understand  that  you  have  a  piece  of  glass  v^hich  you 
threatened  to  use  for  a  suicidal  purpose  last  night,"  said  he, 
when  he  appeared. 

"Yes  I  have,  and  it's  not  your  fault  or  the  other  doctor's 
that  I  am  not  now  dead.  Had  I  gone  mad,  in  my  frenzy  I 
might  have  swallowed  that  glass." 

"Where  is  it?"  asked  the  doctor,  incredulously. 

As  my  strait- jacket  rendered  me  armless  I  presented  the 
glass  to  Jekyll-Hyde  on  the  tip  of  a  tongue  which  he  had 
often  heard  but  never  before  seen. 


XVI 

Mine  was  no  suicidal  intent.  Yet,  in  my  hysterical  con- 
dition it  is  wonderful  that  I  did  not  swallow  that  glass  even 
by  accident;  and  had  I  happened  to  become  irresponsibly 
insane  —  as  well  I  might  —  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
I  should  have  done  so  by  design.  The  assistant  physician 
who  ignored  my  midnight  request  may  have  been  influenced 
by  ethical  reasons  —  perhaps  by  a  wish  not  to  interfere  with 
Doctor  JekyU's  case.  If  so,  ethics  of  that  sort  —  or  the 
so-called  etiquette  of  the  profession  —  had  best  be  done 
away  with  in  asylums.  And,  though  I  am  sure  that  this-' 
physician  harbored  no  feeling  of  ill-wiU  toward  me,  he 
is,  nevertheless,  deser\dng  of  censure  because  of  his  almost 
criminal  neglect  of  a  patient  who,  he  well  knew,  had  previously 
been  possessed  of  suicidal  impulses.  Indeed,  he  did  not 
surely  know  whether  my  apparent  attempt  at  suicide  that 
evening  had  been  real  or  simply  a  ruse.  But  the  general 
belief  was  that  I  had  meant  to  kiU  myself.  The  least  this 
doctor  could  have  done  was  to  take  the  trouble  to  investi- 
gate, judge  my  condition,  and  deprive  me  of  the  piece  of 
glass  I  claimed  to  have  —  or  convince  himself  that  I  did  not 
have  it. 

Such  errors  of  judgment  are,  I  believe,  common.  They 
are  due  sometimes  to  sheer  laziness,  but  probably  more  often 
to  the  fact  that  so  many  insane  patients  cry  *'Wolfl"  But 
annoyance  is  no  excuse  for  negligence.  If  doctors  are  not 
willing  to  do  their  whole  duty  and  protect  aU  patients  at  aU 
hours  they  should  either  resign  or  be  summarily  discharged. 

131 


132  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  so  many  members  of  the  medical 
profession  seek  and  accept  positions  in  hospitals  for  the  in- 
sane, not  because  of  any  genuine  interest  in  the  work  to  be 
done,  but  simply  as  a  sort  of  makeshift  which  will  enable 
them  to  support  themselves  until  they  can  engage  in  the 
general  practice  of  medicine,  or  of  a  certain  congenial  branch 
of  it.  It  is  these  veritable  leeches  who  generally  treat  pa- 
tients with  the  least  consideration.  They  become  medical 
policemen  who  make  their  rounds  in  a  perfunctory  way  and 
resort  to  the  club  or  its  equivalent  upon  slight  provocation. 
Though  there  are  without  doubt  many  competent  physicians, 
fine  men,  who  really  have  taken  up  their  work  among  the 
insane  without  any  intention  of  making  it  their  life-work, 
these  men  have  immediately  appreciated  the  opportunity 
for  the  life  of  noble  unselfishness  which  lies  before  them, 
and,  grasping  that  opportunity,  have  wrought  excellent  re- 
sults —  considering  the  inadequate  equipment  with  which,  in 
most  instances,  they  have  been  compelled  to  work.  What 
surprises  me  is  that  so  many  thoroughly  efficient  physicians 
have  been  willing  to  work  year  in  and  year  out  for  salaries 
which  are  not  so  large,  by  one  half,  as  the  income  most  of 
them  could  surely  enjoy  in  general  practice.  No  class  of 
men  in  the  world  are  more  deserving  of  generous  treatment 
than  the  competent  and  considerate  men  now  working  among 
the  insane.  As  for  the  incompetent,  may  their  incompetence 
be  so  conspicuous  as  to  effect  their  prompt  discharge! 


After  fifteen  interminable  hours  the  strait-jacket  was  re- 
moved. Whereas  just  prior  to  its  putting  on  I  had  been  in 
a  vigorous  enough  condition  to  offer  stout  resistance  when 
assaulted,  now,  on  coming  out  of  it,  I  was  helpless.  When 
my  arms  were  released  from  their  restricted  position  the  pain 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  133 

was  intense.  Each  and  every  joint  had  been  racked.  I  had 
no  control  over  the  fingers  of  either  hand,  and  could  not  have 
dressed  myself  had  I  been  promised  my  freedom  for  doing  so. 
And  this,  bear  in  mind,  was  the  effect  of  a  camisole,  which 
form  of  restraint  hospital  officials,  when  called  upon  to'^ 
testify,  so  often  describe  as  being  harmless  and  not  very  un-  i 
comfortable.  -^ 

For  more  than  the  following  week  I  suffered  as  already 
described,  though  of  course  with  gradually  decreasing 
intensity  as  my  racked  body  became  accustomed  to  the 
unnatural  positions  it  was  forced  to  take.  This  first  experi- 
ence occurred  on  the  night  of  October  i8th,  1902.  I  was 
subjected  to  the  like  unfair  and  unnecessary  ordeal  each 
and  every  night  on  the  following  dates :  October  19th,  20th, 
2ist,  22d,  23d,  24th,  25th,  26th,  27th,  28th,  29th,  30th,  and 
31st,  as  well  as  the  nights  of  November  ist,  2d,  3d,  4th, 
5th,  6th,  and  7th,  —  twenty-one  nights  in  all,  and  parts  of 
each  of  the  corresponding  twenty-one  days.  On  more  than 
one  occasion,  indeed,  the  attendant  placed  me  in  the  strait- 
jacket  during  the  day  for  refusing  to  obey  some  sHght  wish. 
This,  too,  without  an  explicit  order  from  the  doctor  in 
charge,  though  perhaps  he  acted  under  a  general  order.* 

During  most  of  this  restraint  I  was  in  the  padded  cell.  A 
padded  cell  is  a  vile  hole.  The  side  walls  are  padded  as  high 
as  a  man  can  reach,  as  is  also  the  inside  of  the  door.  The 
worst  feature  of  such  cells  is  the  lack  of  ventilation,  which 
deficiency  of  course  aggravates  the  general  unsanitary  con- 
dition. The  cell  which  I  was  compelled  to  occupy  was  prac- 
tically without  heat.    As  a  result  I  suffered  intensely  from 

1  In  some  States  the  law  requires  that  a  record  of  the  use  of  mechanical 
restraint  and  seclusion  be  kept  by  hospital  ofi&cials,  and  that  such  record 
shall  be  open  to  public  inspection.  This  law  is  a  move  in  the  right  direc- 
tion.   Restraint  hates  Pubhcity. 


134 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


the  cold.  Frequently  it  was  so  cold  I  could  see  my  breath. 
And,  though  my  canvas  jacket  served  to  protect  part  of  that 
body  which  it  was  at  the  same  time  racking,  I  was  seldom 
comfortably  warm.  For,  once  uncovered,  my  arms  being 
pinioned,  I  had  no  way  of  re-arranging  the  tangled  blankets. 
What  little  sleep  I  managed  to  get  I  took  lying  on  a  filthy 
and  hard  mattress  placed  on  the  bare  floor. 

Lack  of  ventilation  means  vitiated  and  foul  air,  and  viti- 
ated and  foul  air  was  the  last  thing  one  in  my  conditionTsiiouid' 
have  been  permitted  to  breathe.  I  was  entitled  to  an  ade- 
quate supply  of  oxygen,  for,  being  two  or  three  times  as 
active  as  any  normal  person,  I  was  burning  up  a  propor- 
tionately greater  amount  of  tissue.  Strangely  enough  I 
was  able  to  hold  my  own  while  thus  subjected  to  a 
process  of  slow  poisoning;  but  I  am  confident  that  many 
a  patient,  possessed  of  less  stamina,  has  been  seriously 
affected,  if  not  permanently  injured,  by  confinement  in  such 
unsanitary  dens.  To  describe  the  condition  of  a  padded  cell 
at  its  worst  would  violate  good  taste.  As  it  is  likely  to  be  in 
an  unmentionable  condition  for  hours  at  a  time  the  serious- 
ness of  the  situation  may  be  appreciated.  The  condition  of 
my  mattress  was  such  that  I  objected  to  its  use;  and  nothing 
so  justifies  my  objection  as  the  fact  that  it  was  actually  and 
immediately  heeded.  It  seems  to  be  the  prevailing  opinion 
that  "anything  is  good  enough  for  a  crazy  man."  In  my 
opinion,  if  the  sane  suggestions  and  requests  of  insane  pa- 
tients were  complied  with,  as  my  suggestion  was  on  this 
occasion,  hospitals  for  the  insane  would  become  model  insti- 
tutions sooner  than  they  will  if  the  needed  changes  continue 
to  depend  upon  indifferent  persons  in  authority. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  many  hospitals  for  the  insane 
maintain  such  cells  —  either  padded  or  unpadded.  Like 
strait-jackets  they  can  be  used  to  advantage  only  on  the 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  135 

rarest  occasions.  Therefore  they  should  be  abolished.  They 
have  abready  been  abolished  by  those  doctors  who  are 
advocates  of  Non-Restraint  —  except  in  a  few  instances 
where  the  authorities  have  not  yet  given  these  intelligent 
superintendents  money  enough  to  provide  the  added  atten- 
tion and  equipment  necessary  to  care  properly  for  a  patient 
during  a  period  of  intense  excitement.^ 

The  man  who  was  superintendent  while  I  was  undergoing 
treatment  at  this  hospital  had,  during  his  early  incumbency, 
gained  considerable  distinction  by  advocating  Non-Restraint. 
But,  during  the  latter  years  of  his  life,  for  some  reason 
unknown  to  me,  he  permitted  Restraint  to  be  used  —  in 
moderation.  Nevertheless,  "moderation"  means  "abuse,"  as 
my  account  surely  proves.  I  attribute  this  doctor's  appar- 
ent change  of  attitude  to  his  advanced  age,  which  made  it 
physically  impossible  for  him  to  give  that  attention  to  the 
individual  case  which  a  proper  enforcement  of  Non-Restraint 
requires.  In  saying  this,  however,  I  do  not  wish  to  seem  un- 
grateful to  a  man,  now  dead,  who  did  much  for  me  and  would 
have  done  more  had  he  at  the  time  known  of  the  conduct 
of  his  assistant  physician. 

The  present  superintendent  of  this  hospital,  a  man  in  the 
prime  of  life  and  a  firm  believer  in  Non- Restraint,  is  placing 
the  institution  on  a  Non-Restraint  basis.  The  vile  padded 
cell,  already  described,  no  longer  exists,  and  only  once  or 
twice  during  the  past  year  has  a  patient  been  placed  in  a 
strait-jacket,  and  then  only  by  the  direct  order  and  in  the 
presence  of  the  superintendent  himself.  Why  use  a  strait- 
jacket  at  all  ?     Simply  because  methods  of  treatment  in  an 

1  In  a  hospital  provided  with  modem  bathing  facilities  mechanical  re- 
straint and  "seclusion"  need  never  be  resorted  to;  for  modem  equipment 
includes  the  so-called  "continuous  bath,"  in  which  an  excited  patient  may 
be  placed  and  kept  for  hours,  until  his  excitability  gives  way  to  a  fairly 
normal  calm.    As  a  rule,  patients  enjoy  the  "continuous  bath." 


136  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

institution  in  which  mechanical  restraint  has  been  used 
cannot  immediately  be  changed.  Not  that  the  doctors  ad- 
vocating Non-Restraint  need  time  to  adjust  themselves  to 
the  new  conditions,  but  the  attendants  require  both  time 
and  training;  and  changes  also  (though  not  great  ones)  in 
the  equipment  of  the  building  are  necessary.  The  principle 
of  Non-Restraint  is  something  which  has  to  be  absorbed. 
It  is  an  atmosphere  of  kindliness.  It  is  not  unliEeThe' 
esprit  de  corps  of  the  army  —  a  certain  standard  to  be 
attained  and  maintained.  When  attendants  once  appreciate 
the  significance  and  advantages  of  it  they  invariably  take 
great  pride  in  proving  that  they  have  the  faculty  for  con- 
trolling patients  without  resorting  to  any  other  force  than  that 
of  kindliness — one  of  the  greatest  and  least  used  of  all  forces. 


For  this  period  of  three  weeks  —  from  October  18th  until 
November  8th,  1902,  when  I  left  this  institution  and  was 
transferred  to  a  state  hospital  for  the  insane  —  I  was  con- 
tinuously either  under  lock  and  key  (in  the  padded  cell  or 
some  other  room)  or  under  the  eye  of  an  attendant.  Over 
half  the  time  I  was  in  the  snug  but  cruel  embrace  of  a 
strait-jacket  —  about  three  hundred  hours  in  all.  While 
being  subjected  to  this  terrific  abuse  I  was  held  in  an  exile 
as  complete  as  that  of  a  Siberian  convict.  I  was  cut  off 
from  all  direct  and  all  honest  indirect  communication  with 
my  legally  appointed  conservator,  and  also  with  all  relatives 
and  friends.  I  was  even  cut  off  from  satisfactory  com- 
munication with  the  superintendent,  who  was  a  real  friend 
and  one  who  would  not  have  permitted  me  to  suffer  so  had 
he  known  the  truth.  To  be  sure,  he  knew  that  I  was 
being  subjected  to  restraint,  but  he  supposed  it  was  such 
as  he  himself  would  have  administered  under  like  circum- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


137 


stances,  restraint  which,  though  unpleasant,  need  not  have 
amounted  to  torture.  Being  in  exile  and  deprived  more 
completely  of  my  rights  than  a  justly  condemned  murderer 
who  had  all  but  forfeited  his  life,  I  saw  the  superintendent 
but  twice,  and  then  for  so  short  a  time  that  I  was  unable 
to  give  him  any  convincing  idea  of  my  plight.  These  inter- 
views occurred  on  two  Sundays  that  fell  within  my  period  of 
exile,  for  it  was  on  Sunday  that  the  superintendent  usually 
made  his  weekly  round  of  inspection.  What  chance  had  I 
of  successfully  advocating  my  cause  while  my  pulpit  was  a 
padded  cell,  and  the  congregation  —  with  the  exception  of 
the  superintendent  —  the  very  attaches  who  had  been  abus- 
ing me?  At  such  times  my  pent-up  indignation  poured 
itself  forth  in  such  a  disconnected  way  that  my  protests  were" 
robbed  of  their  right  ring  of  truth.  For  all  that,  I  was  not 
then,  or  at  any  time,  incoherent  in  speech.  I  was  simply 
voluble  and  digressive  —  a  natural  incident  of  elation.  Such 
notes  as  I  managed  to  write  on  scraps  of  paper  were  inva- 
riably confiscated  by  the  assistant  physician.  At  all  events, 
it  was  not  imtil  some  months  later  that  the  superintendent 
was  informed  of  my  treatment,  when,  at  my  request,  no  less 
a  person  than  the  Governor  of  the  State  discussed  the  sub- 
ject with  him.  How  I  brought  about  that  discussion  while 
still  virtually  a  prisoner  will  be  narrated  in  due  time.  And 
not  until  several  days  after  I  had  left  this  institution  and  had 
been  placed  in  another,  when  for  the  first  time  in  six  weeks  I 
saw  my  conservator,  did  he  learn  of  the  treatment  to  which  I 
had  been  subjected.  From  his  office  in  New  Haven  he  had 
on  several  occasions  called  up  the  assistant  physician  and 
inquired  about  my  condition.  Though  the  doctor  did  tell 
him  that  I  was  highly  excited  and  difficult  to  control  he  did 
not  even  hint  that  I  was  being  subjected  to  any  unusual  re- 
straint.    Dr.   Jekyll  deceived  every  one,  and  —  as  things 


138  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

have  turned  out  —  deceived  himself;  for,  had  he  realized 
/then  that  I  should  one  day  be  able  to  do  what  I  am  now 
doing,  his  brutal  instincts  would  surely  have  been  checked 
by  his  cowardly  ones. 

How  helpless,  how  at  the  mercy  of  his  keepers,  a  man  who 
enters  an  asylum  may  be,  is  further  illustrated  by  the  conduct 
of  this  same  doctor.  Once,  during  the  third  week  of  my 
experience  in  a  strait-jacket,  I  refused  to  take  certain  med- 
icine which  the  attendant  offered  me.  For  some  time  I  had 
been  regularly  taking  this  innocuous  concoction  without  pro- 
test; but  I  now  decided  that  as  the  attendant  refused  most 
of  my  requests  I  should  no  longer  comply  with  all  of  his.  He 
did  not  argue  the  point  with  me.  He  simply  reported  my 
refusal  to  Doctor  Jekyll,  A  few  minutes  later  Doctor  Jekyll 
—  or  rather  Mr.  Hyde  —  accompanied  by  three  attendants, 
entered  the  padded  cell.  I  was  robed  for  the  night  —  in  a 
strait-jacket.  Mr.  Hyde  held  in  his  hand  a  rubber  tube. 
An  attendant  stood  near  with  the  medicine.  For  over  two 
years,  threats  had  been  made  that  the  "tube"  would  be  re- 
sorted to  if  I  refused  medicine  or  food.  I  had  begun  to 
look  upon  it  as  a  myth;  but  its  presence  in  the  hands  of  an 
oppressor  now  convinced  me  of  its  reality.  I  saw  that  the 
doctor  and  his  bravos  meant  business;  and,  as  I  had  already 
endured  torture  enough,  I  determined  to  make  every  conces- 
sion this  time  and  escape  what  seemed  to  be  in  store  for  me. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  that?"  I  asked,  fixing 
my  eye  on  the  tube. 

"The  attendant  says  you  refuse  to  take  your  medicine. 
We  are  going  to  make  you  take  it." 

"I'll  take  your  old  medicine,"  was  my  reply. 

"You  have  had  your  chance,"  said  Mr.  Hyde. 

"All  right,"  I  said.  "Put  that  medicine  into  me  any  way 
you  think  best.     But  the  time  will  come  when  you'll  wish 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  139 

you  hadn't.  When  that  time  does  come  it  won't  be  easy  to 
prove  that  you  had  the  right  to  force  a  patient  to  take 
medicine  he  had  offered  to  take.  I  know  something  about 
the  ethics  of  your  profession.  You  have  no  right  to  do 
anything  to  a  patient  except  what's  good  for  him.  You 
know  that.  All  you  are  trying  to  do  is  to  punish  me,  and  I 
give  you  fair  warning  I'm  going  to  camp  on  your  trail  tiU 
you  are  not  only  discharged  from  this  institution,  but  ex- 
pelled from  the  State  Medical  Society  as  well.  You  are  a 
disgrace  to  your  profession,  and  that  society  will  attend  to 
your  case  fast  enough  when  certain  members  of  it,  who  are 
friends  of  mine,  hear  about  this.  Furthermore,  I  shall  re- 
port your  conduct  to  the  Governor  of  the  State.  He  can 
take  some  action  even  if  this  is  not  a  state  institution.  Now, 
damn  you,  do  your  worst!" 

Coming  from  an  insane  man  this  was  rather  straight  talk. 
The  doctor  was  noticeably  disconcerted.  Had  he  not  feared 
to  lose  caste  with  the  attendants  who  stood  by  I  think  he^ 
would  have  given  me  another  chance.  But  he  had  too  much 
pride  and  too  little  manhood  to  recede  from  a  false  position 
once  taken.  I  no  longer  resisted,  even  verbally,  for  I  no 
longer  wanted  the  doctor  to  desist.  Though  I  did  not  an- 
ticipate the  operation  with  pleasure,  I  was  eager  to  take 
the  man's  measure.  He  and  the  attendants  knew  that  I 
usually  kept  a  trick  or  two  even  up  the  sleeve  of  a  strait- 
jacket,  so  they  took  added  precautions.  I  was  fiat  on  my 
back,  with  simply  a  mattress  between  me  and  the  floor.  One 
attendant  held  me.  Another  stood  by  with  the  medicine 
and  with  a  funnel  through  which,  as  soon  as  Mr.  Hyde 
should  insert  the  tube,  the  dose  was  to  be  poured.  The 
third  attendant  stood  near  as  a  reserve  force.  Though  the 
insertion  of  the  tube,  when  skilfully  done,  need  not  cause  suf- 
fering, the  operation  as  conducted  by  Mr.  Hyde  was  painful. 


I40 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


"Try  as  he  would  he  was  unable  to  insert  the  tube  properly, 
though  in  no  way  did  I  attempt  to  balk  him.  His  embar- 
rassment seemed  to  rob  his  hand  of  whatever  cunning  it 
may  have  possessed.  After  what  seemed  ten  minutes  of 
bungling,  though  it  was  probably  not  quite  five,  he  gave  up 
the  attempt,  but  not  until  my  nose  had  begun  to  bleed. 
He  was  plainly  chagrined  when  he  and  his  bravos  retired. 
Intuitively  I  felt  that  they  would  soon  return.  That  they 
did,  armed  with  a  new  implement  of  war.  This  time  the 
doctor  inserted  between  my  teeth  a  large  wooden  peg  —  to 
keep  open  a  mouth  which  he  usually  wished  closed.  He 
then  forced  down  my  throat  a  rubber  tube.  Then  the  at- 
tendant adjusted  the  funnel,  and  the  medicine,  or  rather 
liquid  —  for  its  medicinal  properties  were  without  effect 
upon  me  —  was  poured  in. 

This  medicine  was  supposed  to  be  soporific  in  effect.  If 
I  was  so  greatly  in  need  of  sleep,  was  an  hour  of  intense 
mental  excitement  and  physical  torture  likely  to  induce  it? 
The  spite  of  this  man  who  thus  tried  to  discipline  me  was 
evident.  Though  I  am  confident  that  few  doctors  in  charge 
of  the  insane  act  as  unprofessionally  and  unfairly  as  he  did, 
there  are,  I  believe,  men  of  his  type  to  be  found  in  every 
State  in  the  Union.  And  they  will  continue  to  prey  upon 
the  insane  until  Non-Restraint  becomes  the  watchword  of 
all. 


XVII 

As  the  scant  reports  sent  to  my  conservator  during  these 
three  weeks  indicated  that  I  was  not  improving  as  he  had 
hoped,  he  made  a  special  trip  to  the  institution  to  investigate 
in  person.  On  his  arrival  he  was  met  by  none  other  than 
Doctor  Jekyll,  who  told  him  that  I  was  in  a  highly  excited 
condition,  which,  he  intimated,  would  be  aggravated  by  a 
personal  interview.  Now  for  a  man  to  see  his  brother  in 
my  plight  would  be  a  distressing  ordeal,  and,  though  my 
conservator  came  within  two  hundred  feet  of  my  prison  cell, 
it  naturally  took  but  a  suggestion  to  dissuade  him  from 
coming  nearer.  Doctor  Jekyll  did  tell  him  that  it  had  been 
found  necessary  to  place  me  in  "restraint"  and  "seclusion" 
(the  professional  euphemisms  for  "strait-jacket,"  "padded 
cell,"  etc.),  but  no  hint  was  given  that  I  had  been  roughly 
handled.  Doctor  Jekyll's  politic  dissuasion  was  no  doubt 
inspired  by  the  knowledge  that  if  ever  I  got  within  speaking 
distance  of  my  conservator  nothing  could  prevent  my 
giving  him  a  circumstantial  account  of  my  sufferings  — 
which  account  would  have  been  corroborated  by  the  black- 
ened eye  I  happened  to  have  at  the  time.  Indeed,  in  dealing 
with  my  conservator,  the  assistant  physician  showed  a  degree 
of  tact  which,  had  it  been  directed  toward  myself,  would 
have  sufficed  to  keep  me  tolerably  comfortable. 

My  conservator,  though  temporarily  stayed,  was  not  con- 
vinced. He  felt  that  I  was  not  improving  where  I  was,  and 
he  wisely  decided  that  the  best  course  would  be  to  have  me 
transferred  to  a  pubhc  institution  —  the  State  Hospital.     A 

141 


142  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

few  days  later  the  judge  who  had  originally  committed  me 
ordered  my  transfer.  Nothing  was  said  to  me  about  the 
proposed  change  until  the  moment  of  departure,  and  then 
I  could  scarcely  believe  my  ears.  In  fact  I  did  not  believe 
my  informers;  for  three  weeks  of  abuse,  together  with  my 
continued  inability  to  get  in  touch  with  my  conservator,  had 
so  shaken  my  reason  that  there  was  a  partial  recurrence  of 
old  delusions.  I  imagined  myself  on  the  way  to  the  State 
Prison,  a  few  miles  distant;  and  not  until  the  train  had 
passed  the  prison  station  did  I  believe  that  I  was  really  on 
my  way  to  the  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane.^ 

1  The  managements  of  institutions  where  the  insane  are  received  and 
treated  should,  without  further  delay,  adopt  the  sensible  system  of  nomen- 
clature now  in  use  in  several  States  in  the  Union.  For  instance,  in  New 
York,  the  "State  Hospitals  for  the  Insane"  are  designated  as  follows: 
Hudson  River  State  Hospital,  Willard  State  Hospital,  Manhattan  State 
Hospital,  etc.  The  word  "insane"  does  not  appear  in  the  name  or  on  the 
stationery  of  an  institution,  where  it  is  so  likely  to  offend  sensitive  inmates 
and  their  relatives.  The  phrase  "State  Hospital,"  vdth  appropriate  words 
preceding,  —  preferably  a  word  or  words  suggesting  its  location,  —  is  all  the 
designation  needed.  A  general  adoption  of  this  suggestion  vsdll  render 
obsolete  the  already  archaic  but  still  used  names:  "Lunatic  Asylum," 
"  Insane  Asylum,"  "Insane  Hospital"  and  "Hospital  for  the  Insane."  In 
this  book  the  latter  name  is  repeatedly  used,  —  not  from  choice,  however, 
but  because  it  is  the  one  in  general  use  at  present.  The  main  point  is  that 
people  should  learn  to  avoid  the  unnecessary  use  of  words  weighted  with 
misconceptions  of  the  past. 


XVIII 

The  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane  in  which  I  now  found 
myself,  though  in  many  respects  above  the  average  of  such 
institutions,  is  typical.  It  commands  a  wide  view  of  a  beauti- 
ful river  and  valley.  This  view  I  was  permitted  to  enjoy  — 
at  first.  Those  in  charge  of  the  institution  which  I  had  just 
left  did  not  give  my  new  custodians  any  detailed  account  of 
my  case.  Their  reticence  was,  I  believe,  occasioned  by 
chagrin  rather  than  charity.  Tamers  of  wild  men  have  as 
much  pride  as  tamers  of  wild  animals  (but  unfortunately 
less  skill)  and  to  admit  defeat  is  a  thing  not  to  be  thought 
of.  Though  private  institutions  are  prone  to  shift  their 
troublesome  cases  to  state  institutions,  there  is  a  deplorable 
lack  of  sympathy  and  co-operation  between  them,  which  in 
this  instance,  however,  proved  fortunate  for  me. 

From  October  i8th  until  the  early  afternoon  of  November 
8th,  at  the  private  institution,  I  had  been  classed  as  a  raving 
maniac.  The  name  I  had  brought  upon  myself  by  experi- 
mental conduct;  the  condition  had  been  aggravated  and 
perpetuated  by  the  stupidity  of  those  in  authority  over  me. 
And  it  was  the  same  experimental  conduct  on  my  part,  and 
stupidity  on  the  part  of  my  new  custodians,  which  gave 
rise,  two  weeks  later,  to  a  similar  situation.  On  Friday, 
November  7th,  I  was  in  a  strait- jacket.  On  November  9th 
and  loth  I  was  apparently  as  tractable  as  any  of  the  twenty- 
three  hundred  patients  in  the  State  Hospital  —  convention- 
ally clothed,  mild  mannered,  and,  seemingly,  right  minded. 
On  the  9th,  the  day  after  my  arrival,  I  attended  a  church 

143 


144 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


service  held  at  the  hospital.  My  behavior  was  not  other 
than  that  of  the  most  pious  worshiper  in  the  land.  The 
next  evening,  with  most  exemplary  deportment,  I  attended 
one  of  the  dances  which  are  held  every  fortnight  during  the 
winter.  Had  I  been  a  raving  maniac  such  activities  would 
have  led  to  a  disturbance;  for  maniacs,  of  necessity,  disre- 
gard the  conventions  of  both  pious  and  polite  society.  Yet, 
on  either  of  these  days,  had  I  been  in  the  private  institution, 
I  should  have  occupied  a  cell  and  worn  a  strait-jacket. 

The  assistant  superintendent,  who  received  me  upon  my 
arrival,  judged  me  by  my  behavior.  He  assigned  me  to  one 
of  two  connecting  wards  —  the  best  in  the  hospital  —  where 
about  seventy  patients  led  a  fairly  agreeable  life.  Though 
no  ofhcial  account  of  my  case  had  accompanied  my  transfer, 
the  attendant  who  had  acted  as  escort  and  guard  had  already 
given  an  attendant  at  the  State  Hospital  a  brief  account  of 
my  recent  experiences.  Yet  when  this  report  finally  reached 
the  ears  of  those  in  authority  they  wisely  decided  not  to  trans- 
fer me  to  another  ward  so  long  as  I  caused  no  trouble  where 
I  was.  Finding  myself  at  last  among  friends  I  lost  no  time 
in  asking  for  writing  and  drawing  materials,  which  had 
so  rudely  been  taken  from  me  three  weeks  earlier.  My  re- 
quest was  promptly  granted.  The  doctors  and  attendants 
treated  me  kindly  and  I  again  began  to  enjoy  life.  My  de- 
sire to  write  and  draw  had  not  abated.  However,  I  did  not 
devote  my  entire  time  to  those  pursuits,  for  there  were  plenty 
of  congenial  companions  about.  I  found  pleasure  in  talk- 
ing —  more  pleasure  by  far  than  others  did  in  listening.  In 
fact  I  talked  incessantly,  and  soon  made  known,  in  a  general 
way,  my  scheme  for  reforming  asylums,  not  only  in  the 
State,  but,  of  course,  throughout  the  world,  for  my  delu- 
sional perspective  made  the  earth  look  small.  The  attend- 
ants had  to  bear  the  brunt  of  my  loquacity,  and  they  soon 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  145 

grew  weary.  One  of  them,  wishing  to  induce  silence,  ven- 
tured to  remark  that  I  was  so  crazy  I  could  not  possibly 
keep  my  mouth  shut  for  even  one  minute.  His  challenge 
aroused  my  fighting  spirit. 

''I'll  show  you  that  I  can  stop  talking  for  a  whole  day," 
said  I.  He  laughed,  knowing  that  of  all  difficult  tasks  this 
which  I  had  imposed  upon  myself  was,  for  one  in  my  con- 
dition, least  likely  of  accomplishment.  But  I  was  as  good 
as  my  boast.  Until  the  same  hour  the  next  day  I  refused  to 
speak  to  any  one.  I  did  not  even  reply  to  civil  questions; 
and,  though  my  silence  was  deliberate  and  good-natured, 
the  assistant  physician  seemed  to  consider  it  of  a  contuma- 
cious variety,  for  he  threatened  to  transfer  me  to  a  less 
desirable  ward  imless  I  should  again  begin  to  talk. 

That  day  of  self-imposed  silence  was  just  about  the  longest 
I  have  ever  lived,  for  I  was  under  a  word-pressure  sufficient 
to  have  filled  a  book.  Any  alienist  will  admit  that  my  per- 
formance was  remarkable,  and  he  will  further  agree  that  it 
was,  at  least,  an  indication  of  a  high  degree  of  self-control. 
Though  I  have  no  desire  to  prove  that  at  this  period  I  was  not 
in  an  abnormal  condition,  I  do  wish  to  show  that  I  had  a 
degree  of  self-control  that  probably  would  have  enabled  me 
to  remain  in  the  best  ward  at  this  institution  had  I  not  been 
intent  —  insanely  intent,  of  course,  and  yet  with  a  high  de- 
gree of  deliberation  —  upon  a  reformatory  investigation. 
The  crest  of  my  wave  of  elation  had  been  reached  early  in 
October.  It  was  now  (November)  that  the  curve  represent- 
ing my  return  to  normality  should  have  been  continuous 
and  diminishing.  Instead,  it  was  kept  violently  fluctuating 
—  or  at  least  its  fluctuations  were  aggravated  —  by  the  im- 
positions of  those  in  charge  of  me,  induced  sometimes,  I 
freely  admit,  by  deliberate  and  purposeful  transgressions  of 
my  own.     My  condition  during  my  first  three  weeks  of  exile 


146  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF 

had  been,  if  anything,  one  of  milder  excitement  than  that 
which  had  previously  obtained  during  the  first  seven  vi'-eeks 
of  my  period  of  elation.  And  my  condition  during  the  two 
weeks  I  now  remained  in  the  best  ward  in  the  State  Hospital 
was  not  different  from  my  condition  during  the  preceding 
three  weeks  of  torture,  or  the  succeeding  three  weeks  of  abuse 
and  privation  —  except  in  so  far  as  a  difference  was  occa- 
sioned by  the  torture  and  privation  itself. 

Though  I  had  all  along  intended  to  effect  reforms  in  ex- 
isting methods  of  treatment,  my  intense  and  reckless  desire 
to  investigate  "violent  wards"  did  not  possess  me  until  I 
myself  had  experienced  the  torture  of  continued  confine- 
ment in  such  a  ward.  It  was  simple  to  deduce  that  if  one 
could  suffer  as  I  had  while  a  patient  in  a  private  institution, 
brutality  must  exist  in  a  state  hospital.  So  it  was  that  I  en- 
tered the  State  Hospital  with  a  firm  resolve  to  inspect  per- 
sonally every  type  of  ward,  good  and  bad.  But  I  was  in  no 
hurry  to  begin.  My  recent  experience  had  exhausted  me, 
and  I  wished  to  regain  strength  before  subjecting  myself  to 
another  such  ordeal.  This  desire  to  recuperate  controlled  my 
conduct  for  a  while,  but  its  influence  gradually  diminished  as 
life  became  more  and  more  monotonous.  I  soon  found  the 
good  ward  entirely  too  polite.  I  craved  excitement — action. 
And  I  determined  to  get  it  regardless  of  consequences; 
though  I  am  free  to  confess  I  should  not  have  had  the  courage 
to  execute  my  plan  had  I  known  what  was  in  store  for  me. 

About  this  time  my  conservator  called  to  see  me.  Of 
course  I  told  him  all  about  my  cruel  experiences  at  the 
private  institution.  My  account  surprised  and  distressed 
him.  I  also  told  him  that  I  knew  for  a  fact  that  similar 
conditions  existed  at  the  State  Hospital,  as  I  had  heard  con- 
vincing rumors  to  that  effect.  He  urged  me  to  behave  my- 
self and  remain  in  the  ward  where  I  was,  which  ward,  as  I 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  147 

admitted,  was  all  that  one  could  desire  —  provided  one  had 
schooled  himself  to  desire  that  sort  of  thing.  During  our 
talk  I  told  my  conservator  that  I  wished  to  spend  Thanks- 
giving Day  at  home.  He  said  that  that  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, as  I  was  in  too  excited  a  condition.  His  objection  was 
absolutely  fair,  but  I  could  not  at  that  time  see  the  jus- 
tice of  it.  With  intense  feeling  and  the  forcefulness  of 
right  words  I  informed  him  that  nothing  should  prevent 
my  going  to  New  Haven  the  following  week. 

The  fact  that  I  was  under  lock  and  key  and  behind  what 
were  virtually  prison  bars  in  no  way  gave  me  a  sense  of  help- 
lessness. I  firmly  believed  that  I  should  find  it  easy  to 
effect  my  escape  and  reach  home  for  the  Thanksgiving  Day 
celebration.  And,  furthermore,  I  knew  that,  should  I  reach 
home,  I  should  not  be  denied  my  portion  of  the  good  things 
to  eat  before  being  returned  to  the  hospital.  (After  a  famine, 
love  of  food  is  hkely  to  be  as  strong  as  love  of  home.)  Being 
under  the  spell  of  an  intense  desire  to  investigate  the  "vio- 
lent ward,"  I  concluded  that  the  time  for  action  had  come. 
I  reasoned,  too,  that  it  would  be  easier  and  safer  to  escape 
from  that  ward  —  which  was  on  a  level  with  the  ground  — 
than  from  a  ward  three  stories  above  it.  The  next  thing  I 
did  was  to  inform  the  attendants  and  several  of  the  patients 
that  within  a  day  or  two  I  should  do  something  to  cause  my 
removal  thither.  They  of  course  did  not  believe  that  I  had 
any  idea  of  deliberately  inviting  such  a  transfer,  for  the 
violent  ward  to  an  inmate  of  a  hospital  for  the  insane  is 
what  a  prison  is  to  a  sane  and  free  man.  My  very  frank- 
ness disarmed  the  attendants. 

On  the  evening  of  November  21st  I  went  from  room  to 
room  collecting  all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends  belonging  to  other 
patients.  These  I  secreted  in  my  room.  I  also  collected 
a  small  library  of  books,  magazines,  and  newspapers.    After 


148  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

securing  all  the  booty  I  dared,  I  mingled  with  the  other 
patients  until  the  time  came  for  going  to  bed.  The  attend- 
ants soon  locked  me  in  my  junk  shop  and  I  spent  the  rest 
of  the  night  setting  it  in  disorder.  My  original  plan  had  been 
to  barricade  the  door  during  the  night,  and  thus  hold  the 
doctors  and  attendants  at  bay  until  those  in  authority  had 
accepted  my  ultimatum,  which  was  to  include  a  Thanksgiv- 
ing visit  at  home.  But  before  morning  I  had  slightly  al- 
tered my  plan.  My  sleepless  night  of  activity  had  made  me 
ravenously  hungry,  and  I  decided  that  it  would  be  wiser  not 
only  to  fill  my  stomach  but  to  lay  by  other  supplies  of  food 
before  submitting  to  a  siege.  Accordingly  I  set  things  to 
rights  and  went  about  my  business  the  next  morning  as 
usual.  At  breakfast  I  ate  enough  for  two  men,  and  put  in 
my  pockets  bread  enough  to  last  for  twenty-four  hours  at 
least.  Then  I  returned  to  my  room  and  at  once  barricaded 
the  door.  My  barricade  consisted  of  a  wardrobe,  several 
drawers  which  I  had  removed  from  the  bureau,  and  a  num- 
ber of  books,  —  among  them  "  Paradise  Lost  "  and  the 
Bible,  which  books  I  placed  in  position,  with  conscious 
satisfaction,  as  a  key-stone.  Thus  the  space  between  the 
door  and  the  opposite  wall  of  the  room  was  completely  filled. 
My  room-mate,  a  young  fellow  in  the  speechless  condition  in 
which  I  had  been  during  my  period  of  depression,  was  in 
the  room  with  me.  This  was  accidental.  It  was  no  part  of 
my  plan  to  hold  him  as  a  hostage,  though  I  might  finally  have 
used  him  as  a  pawn  in  the  negotiations  had  my  barricade 
resisted  the  impending  attack  longer  than  it  did.  It  is  a 
cormnon  trick  for  insane  patients  to  barricade  their  doors, 
and  such  situations  when  they  arise  are  rightly  regarded  as 
serious.  The  conduct  of  the  patient  who  has  thus  isolated 
himself  is,  to  those  in  authority,  entirely  a  matter  of  con- 
jecture.   Though  certain  types  of  patients  may  safely  be  left 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


149 


in  their  elected  seclusion,  one  as  excited  as  I  was  on  this 
occasion,  of  course,  had  to  be  brought  to  bay.  It  was  not 
long  before  the  attendants  realized  that  something  was 
wrong.  They  came  to  my  door  and  asked  me  to  open  it,  I 
refused,  and  told  them  that  to  argue  the  point  would  be  a 
waste  of  time.  They  tried  to  force  an  entrance.  Failing  in 
that,  they  reported  to  the  assistant  physician.  At  first  he 
parleyed  with  me.  I  good-naturedly,  but  emphatically,  told 
him  that  I  could  not  be  talked  out  of  the  position  I  had 
taken;  nor  could  I  be  taken  out  of  it  until  I  was  ready  to 
surrender,  for  my  barricade  was  one  that  would  surely  hold. 
I  also  announced  that  I  had  carefully  planned  my  line  of 
action  and  knew  what  I  was  about.  I  complimented  him  on 
his  hitherto  tactful  treatment  of  me,  and  grandiloquently  — 
yet  sincerely  —  I  thanked  him  for  his  many  courtesies.  I 
also  expressed  entire  satisfaction  with  the  past  conduct  of 
the  attendants.  In  fact,  on  that  part  of  the  institution  in 
which  I  was  then  confined  I  put  the  stamp  of  my  capricious 
approval.  "But,"  said  I,  "I  know  that  there  are  wards  in 
this  hospital  where  helpless  patients  are  brutally  treated; 
and  I  intend  to  put  a  stop  to  these  abuses  at  once.  Not 
until  the  Governor  of  the  State,  the  judge  who  committed 
me,  and  my  conservator  come  to  this  door  will  I  open  it. 
When  they  arrive  we  '11  see  whether  or  not  patients  are  to  be 
robbed  of  their  rights  and  abused." 

My  speech  was  made  through  a  screen  transom  over  the 
door.  In  print  it  has  a  highly  sane  and  connected  appear- 
ance; but  my  course  of  action  was  rightly  construed  as 
symptomatic  of  elation;  and  the  doctor  acted  wisely  in  re- 
fusing to  be  reassured.  For  a  few  minutes  he  continued 
his  persuasive  methods.  That  he  should  even  imagine  that 
I  would  basely  recede  from  my  high  and  mighty  position, 
only  irritated  me  the  more. 


I50  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

"You  can  stand  outside  that  door  all  day  if  you  choose," 
I  said.  "I  won't  open  it  until  the  three  men  I  have  named 
appear.  I  have  prepared  for  a  siege;  and  I  have  enough 
food  in  this  room  to  keep  me  going  for  a  day  anyway." 

My  ultimatum  was  in  fact  couched  in  more  vituperative 
terms  and  naturally  nettled  the  doctor.  Besides,  he  was,  no 
doubt,  apprehensive  for  my  room-mate,  fearing  perhaps  that 
I  might  make  his  life  the  price  of  a  refusal  to  summon  the 
State  authorities  at  my  bidding.  Realizing  at  last  that  no 
argument  would  move  me,  he  set  about  forcing  an  entrance. 
First  he  tried  to  remove  the  transom  by  striking  it  with  a 
stout  stick.  I  gave  blow  for  blow  and  the  transom  remained 
in  place.  To  this  day  it  shows  the  marks  of  the  conflict.  A 
carpenter  was  then  sent  for,  but  before  he  could  go  about  his 
work  one  of  the  attendants  managed  to  open  the  door  enough 
to  thrust  in  his  arm  and  shove  aside  my  barricade.  I  did 
not  realize  what  was  being  done  until  it  was  too  late  to  inter- 
fere. The  door  once  open,  in  rushed  the  doctor  and  four 
attendants.  Without  ceremony  I  was  thrown  upon  the  bed, 
with  two  or  tliree  of  the  attacking  force  on  top  of  me.  Again 
I  was  choked,  this  time  by  the  assistant  physician.  Though 
I  am  of  the  opinion  that  such  action  on  his  part  was  totally 
uncalled  for,  especially  so  because  of  its  demoralizing  effect 
upon  the  attendants  present,  I  wish  to  credit  him  with  a  de- 
gree of  skill  which  enabled  him  to  accomplish  his  purpose 
without  any  serious  bruising  of  my  throat.  The  operation 
was  a  matter  of  only  a  moment.  But  before  it  was  over  I 
had  the  good  fortune  to  deal  the  doctor  a  stinging  blow  on 
the  jaw,  for  which  (as  he  was  about  my  own  age  and  the 
odds  were  five  to  one)  I  have  never  felt  called  upon  to 
apologize. 

Once  I  was  subdued  each  of  the  four  attendants  attached 
himself  to  a  leg  or  an  arm  and,  under  the  direction  of  the  doc- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  151 

tor,  I  was  carried  bodily  through  two  corridors,  down  two 
flights  of  stairs,  and  to  the  "violent  ward."  My  dramatic 
exit  startled  my  fellow  patients,  for  so  much  action  in  so 
short  a  time  is  seldom  seen  in  a  quiet  ward.  And  few 
patients  placed  in  the  "violent  ward"  are  introduced  with  so 
impressive  an  array  of  camp-followers  as  I  had  that  day. 

All  this  to  me  was  a  huge  joke,  with  a  good  purpose  be- 
hind it.  Though  excited  I  was  good-natured  and,  en  route 
to  my  new  quarters,  I  said  to  the  doctor;  "Whether  you  be- 
lieve it  or  not,  it's  a  fact  that  I'm  going  to  reform  these  in- 
stitutions before  I'm  done.  I  raised  this  rumpus  to  make 
you  transfer  me  to  the  violent  ward.  What  I  want  you  to  do 
now  is  to  show  me  the  worst  you've  got." 

"You  needn't  worry,"  said  the  doctor.     "You'll  get  it." 

He  spoke  the  truth.    I  did  "get  it." 


XIX 

Ix  this  countr}'  on  Decem?jer  31st,  1903,  there  v»'ere  two 
hundred  and  twenty-six  public  and  one  hundred  and  two 
private  hospitals  for  the  insane.  The  majority  of  these,  ex- 
cept the  smallest  of  the  private  institutions,  must  have  at 
least  two  "violent  wards"  —  one  for  the  men,  one  for  the 
women.  Some  of  the  larger  hospitals  have  several  such 
wards.  Therefore,  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  there  are, 
all  told,  about  seven  hundred  v/ards  of  this  character  in 
which  not  fev/er  than  fifteen  thousand  patients  are  confined. 
Of  these  thousands,  many  live,  as  it  were,  near  the  very 
crater  of  a  volcano  of  trouble;  and  many  of  the  other 
patients  live  on  the  uncertain  slopes  of  this  same  volcano 
—  within  a  zone  of  constant  menace. 

Throughout  the  countr}^,  so-called  'Violent  wards"  differ 
considerably.  Of  the  worst  of  them,  I  say  "so-called"  out 
of  deference  to  the  doctors  who  work  among  the  insane.  For 
you  will  never  hear  one  of  them  say  "\aolent  ward."  That 
term  offends  their  sensibilities.  They  refer  to  such  wards 
as  "excited  wards,"  "strong  wards,"  "back  wards,"  or 
"disturbed  wards."  I  wish  that  I  might  honestly  adopt 
their  "perfumed  phrases,"  but  I  cannot.  A  "\dolent  ward" 
is  not  a  place  where  insane  patients  violently  attack  their 
keepers  or  fellow-patients,  except  in  the  rarest  of  instances, 
and  then,  as  a  rule,  only  after  they  have  been  goaded  into  a 
revengeful  madness  by  unremitting  cruelty.  In  a  word, 
a  "violent  ward"  is  too  often  a  ward  wherein  \iolence  is 
done  to  helpless  patients  by   ignorant,  untrained,  and  un- 

152 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  153 

sympathetic  attendants.  However,  in  justice  to  a  consider- 
able and  increasing  number  of  institutions  where  patients 
are  uniformly  treated  with  consideration,  I  wish  to  state 
that  in  these  well  managed  hospitals  no  ward  is  deserving 
of  the  name  "violent  ward."  But  this  admission  only 
strengthens  my  contention  that  it  is  the  character  of  the 
attendants  in  charge  of  the  troublesome  cases,  and  not  the 
disposition  of  the  patients  themselves,  which  makes  a  ward 
a  "violent  ward." 


Even  for  a  "violent  ward"  my  entrance  was  spectacular 
—  if  not  dramatic.  The  three  attendants  regularly  in  charge 
naturally  jumped  at  the  conclusion  that,  in  me,  a  trouble- 
some patient  had  been  foisted  upon  them.  They  noted  my 
arrival  with  an  unpleasant  curiosit}",  which  in  turn  aroused 
my  curiosity,  for  it  took  but  a  glance  to  convince  me  that  my 
burly  keepers  were  typical  attendants  of  the  brute-force  type. 
Acting  on  the  order  of  the  doctor  in  charge,  one  of  these  at- 
tendants stripped  me  of  my  outer  garments,  and,  clad  in 
nothing  but  underclothes,  I  was  thrust  into  a  cell.  Few, 
if  any,  state  prisons  in  this  country  contain  worse  holes  than 
this  cell  proved  to  be.  It  was  one  of  five,  situated  in  a  short 
corridor  adjoining  the  main  ward.  It  was  about  six  feet  wide 
by  ten  feet  long  and  of  a  good  height.  A  heavily  screened 
and  barred  window  admitted  light  and  a  negligible  quantity 
of  air  —  for  the  ventilation  scarcely  deserved  the  name.  The 
walls  and  floor  were  bare,  and  there  w^as  no  furniture.  A 
patient  confined  here  must  he  on  the  floor  with  no  substitute 
for  a  bed  but  one  or  two  felt  druggets.  Sleeping  under  such 
conditions  becomes  tolerable  after  a  time,  but  not  until  one 
has  become  accustomed  to  King  on  a  surface  nearly  as  hard 
as  stone.    Here  (as  well,  indeed,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  ward) 


154  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

for  a  period  of  three  weeks  I  was  permitted,  yes,  forced  — 
to  breathe  and  re-breathe  air  so  vitiated  that  even  when  I 
occupied  a  larger  room,  doctors  and  attendants  seldom 
entered  without  remarking  its  quality; — this,  too,  at  a, time 
when  the  restoration  of  my  physical  and  mental  health  es- 
pecially demanded  pure  air  and  plenty  of  it.  My  first  meal 
increased  my  distaste  for  my  semi-sociological  experiment. 
For  over  a  month  I  was  kept  in  a  half-starved  condition.  At 
each  meal,  to  be  sure,  I  was  given  the  usual  portion  of 
food  served  to  the  other  patients,  but  an  average  portion 
of  such  food  is  not  sufficient  to  repair  the  prodigal  waste  of 
brain  and  bodily  tissue  which  is  symptomatic  of  elation. 

Worst  of  all,  it  was  winter,  and  these,  my  fijrst  quarters, 
were  without  heat.  As  one's  olfactory  nerves  soon  become 
uncommunicative,  the  breathing  of  foul  air  is  not  a  conscious 
hardship.  To  be  famished  the  greater  part  of  the  time,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  a  very  conscious  hardship.  But  to  be 
half-frozen,  day  in  and  day  out  for  a  long  period,  is  exqui- 
site torture.  Of  all  the  suffering  I  endured,  that  occasioned 
by  confinement  in  cold  cells  seems  to  have  made  the  most 
lasting  impression.  Hunger  is  a  local  disturbance,  but  when 
one  is  cold  every  nerve  in  the  body  registers  its  call  for  help. 
Long  before  reading  a  certain  passage  of  De  Quincey's  I  had 
decided  that  cold  could  cause  greater  suffering  than  hunger; 
consequently,  it  was  with  great  satisfaction  that  I  read  the 
following  sentences  from  his  "Confessions":  "O  ancient 
women,  daughters  of  toil  and  suffering,  among  all  the  hard- 
ships and  bitter  inheritances  of  flesh  that  ye  are  called  upon  to 
face,  not  one  —  not  even  hunger  —  seems  in  my  eyes  compar- 
able to  that  of  nightly  cold.  ...  A  more  killing  curse  there 
does  not  exist  for  man  or  woman  than  the  bitter  combat  be- 
tween the  weariness  that  prompts  sleep  and  the  keen,  search- 
ing cold  that  forces  you  from  that  first  access  of  sleep  to  start 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  155 

up  horror-stricken,  and  to  seek  warmth  vainly  in  renewed 
exercise,  though  long  since  fainting  under  fatigue." 

The  hardness  of  the  bed  and  the  coldness  of  the  room  were 
not  all  that  interfered  with  sleep.  The  short  corridor  in 
which  I  was  placed  was  known  as  the  "Bull  Pen"  —  a 
phrase  eschewed  by  the  doctors.^  It  is  so  called,  I  suppose, 
because  it  is  usually  in  an  uproar  —  especially  during  the 
dark  hours  of  the  early  morning.  Patients  in  a  state  of 
excitement  may  sleep  during  the  first  hours  of  the  night,  but 
seldom  all  night,  and  even  should  one  have  the  capacity  to 
do  so,  his  companions  in  durance  would  wake  him  up  with  a 
shout,  or  a  song,  or  a  curse,  or  the  kicking  of  a  door.  A 
noisy  and  chaotic  medley  frequently  continues  without  inter- 
ruption for  hours  at  a  time.  Noise,  unearthly  noise,  is  the 
poetic  license  allowed  the  occupants  of  these  cells.  I  spent 
several  days  and  nights  in  one  or  another  of  the  cells  of  the 
"Bull  Pen"  and  I  question  whether  I  averaged  more  than 
two  or  three  hours'  sleep  a  night  during  that  time.  Seldom  do 
the  regular  attendants  pay  any  attention  to  the  noise,  though 
even  they  must  at  times  be  disturbed  by  it.  In  fact  the  only 
person  likely  to  attempt  to  stop  it  is  the  night-watch,  who, 
when  he  does  enter  a  cell  for  that  purpose,  invariably  kicks  or 
chokes  the  noisy  patient  into  a  state  of  temporary  quiet.  I 
noted  this  and  scented  trouble. 

Drawing  and  writing  materials  having  been  again  taken 
from  me,  I  cast  about  for  some  new  occupation.     As  soon 

1  The  term  "Bull  Pen"  has  many  meanings.  It  is  perhaps,  more  com- 
monly applied  to  walled-in  or  fenced-in  enclosures  where  insane  patients 
may  be  herded  together,  and,  at  a  minimum  of  effort  on  the  part  of  those  in 
authority,  be  given  deceptive  and  anything  but  beneficial  tastes  of  such  re- 
stricted liberty  as  must,  of  necessity,  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  insane.  The  more 
efBcient  superintendents  of  our  hospitals  for  the  insane  condemn  the  use  of 
"  Bull  Pens,"  and  are  able  to  do  without  them  simply  by  turning  the  patients 
loose  within  a  given  and  generous  area  and  placing  attendants  on  guard  to 
preserve  order  and  prevent  escapes. 


156  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

as  I  was  transferred  to  a  room  with  a  bed,  I  found  an  occu- 
pation in  the  problem  of  warmth.  Though  I  gave  repeated 
expression  to  the  benumbed  messages  of  my  tortured  nerves, 
the  doctor  refused  to  return  my  clothes.  For  a  semblance 
of  warmth  I  was  forced  to  depend  upon  ordinary  undergar- 
ments and  an  extraordinary  imagination.  The  heavy  felt 
druggets  were  about  as  plastic  as  blotting  paper  and  I  de- 
rived little  comfort  from  them  until  I  hit  upon  the  idea  of 
rending  them  into  strips.  These  strips  I  would  weave  into  a 
crude  Rip  Van  Winkle  sort  of  suit;  and  so  intricate  was  the 
warp  and  woof  thereof  that  the  attendant  had  to  cut  me  out 
of  it  each  morning.  At  first,  until  I  acquired  the  destruc- 
tive knack,  the  tearing  of  one  drugget  into  strips  was  a  task 
of  four  or  five  hours.  But  in  time  I  became  so  proficient 
that  I  could  completely  destroy  two,  sometimes  three,  of 
these  six-by-eight  druggets  in  a  single  night.  During  the 
following  weeks  of  my  close  confinement  I  destroyed  more 
than  twenty  of  these  druggets,  each  worth  about  four 
dollars;  —  and  I  confess,  I  found  a  peculiar  satisfaction  in 
the  destruction  of  property  belonging  to  a  State  which  had 
deprived  me  of  all  my  effects  —  except  underclothes.  But 
my  destructiveness  was  due  to  a  variety  of  causes.  It  was 
occasioned  primarily  by  a  "pressure  of  activity,"  for  which 
the  tearing  of  druggets  served  as._a-,v^nt.  A  phrase  used  by 
me  in  a  letter  written  during  my  first  month  of  elation  aptly 
describes  my  condition  at  this  time.  Said  I,  in  that  letter, 
"I'm  as  busy  as  a  nest  of  ants."  That  my  energy  should 
direct  itself  toward  the  only  destructible  objects  at  hand  — 
the  druggets  —  was  not  surprising;  nor  was  it  surprising 
that  I  found  a  use  for  the  strips,  for,  as  I  have  already 
proved,  an  insane  person's  acts  are  often  purposeful. 
Though  the  habit  of  tearing  druggets  was  the  outgrowth 
of  an  «tlTi«sij»l  impulse,  the  habit  itself  lasted  longer  than 


A  MIND   THAT   FOUND   ITSELF 


157 


it  could  have  done  had  I  not,  for  so  long  a  time,  been 
deprived  of  suitable  clothes  and  been  held  a  prisoner  in  cold 
cells.  But  another  motive  soon  asserted  itself.  Being  de- 
prived of  all  the  luxuries  of  life  and  most  of  the  necessities, 
my  mother-wit,  always  conspiring  with  a  wild  imagination 
for  something  to  occupy  my  time,  led  me  at  last  to  invade 
the  field  of  invention.  With  appropriate  contrariety  an 
unfamiliar  and,  by  me,  hitherto  almost  detested  line  of  in- 
vestigation now  attracted  me.  Abstruse  mathematical 
problems  which  had  defied  solution  for  centuries  began  to 
appear  easy.  To  defy  the  State  and  its  puny  representatives 
had  become  mere  child's  play,  so  I  forthwith  decided  to 
overcome  no  less  a  force  than  gravity  itself. 

My  conquering  imagination  soon  tricked  me  into  believ- 
ing that  I  could  lift  myself  by  my  boot-straps  —  or  rather 
that  I  should  do  so  when  my  laboratory  should  contain  foot- 
gear that  lent  itself  to  the  experiment.  But  what  of  the 
strips  of  felt  torn  from  the  druggets?  Why,  these  I  used  as 
the  straps  of  my  missing  boots ;  and  having  no  boots  to  stand 
in  I  used  my  bed  as  boots.  I  reasoned  that  for  my  scien- 
tific purpose  a  man  in  bed  was  as  favorably  situated  as 
a  man  in  boots.  Therefore,  attaching  a  sufiicient  number 
of  my  felt  strips  to  the  head  and  foot  of  the  bed,  and,  in 
turn,  attaching  the  free  ends  to  the  transom  and  the 
window-guard,  I  found  the  rest  very  simple.  For,  next, 
I  joined  these  cloth  cables  in  such  manner  that  by  pulling 
downward  I  effected  a  re-adjustment  of  stress  and  strain, 
and  my  bed,  with  me  in  it,  was  soon  dangling  in  space.  My 
sensations  at  this  momentous  instant  must  have  been  much 
like  those  which  thrilled  Newton  when  he  solved  one  of 
the  riddles  of  the  universe.  Indeed,  they  must  have  been 
more  intense,  for  Newton,  knowing,  had  his  doubts;  I,  not 
knowing,  had  no  doubts  at  all.     So  epoch-making  did  this 


158  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

discovery  appear  to  me  that  I  noted  the  exact  position  of  the 
bed  so  that  a  wondering  posterity  might  ever  afterward 
view  and  reverence  the  exact  spot  on  the  earth's  sur- 
face whence  one  of  man's  greatest  thoughts  had  winged  its 
way  to  immortality. 

For  weeks  I  beheved  I  had  uncovered  a  mechanical  prin- 
ciple which  would  enable  man  to  defy  gravity.  And  I  talked 
freely  and  confidently  about  it.  That  is,  I  proclaimed  the 
impending  results.  The  intermediate  steps  in  the  solution 
of  my  problem  I  ignored  —  for  good  reasons.  A  blind  man 
may  harness  a  horse.  So  long  as  the  horse  is  harnessed  one 
need  not  know  the  office  of  each  strap  and  buckle.  Grav- 
ity was  harnessed  —  that  was  all.  At  the  proper  time  I 
should  reveal  my  secret  in  detail.  Meanwhile  I  felt  sure 
that  another  sublime  moment  of  inspiration  would  intervene 
and  clear  the  atmosphere,  thus  rendering  flight  of  the  body 
as  easy  as  a  flight  of  imagination. 


XX 

While  my  inventive  operations  were  in  progress  I  was 
chafing  under  a  sense  of  the  injustice  of  the  unsanitary  and 
certainly  unscientific  treatment  to  which  I  was  being  sub- 
jected. In  spite  of  my  close  confinement  in  vile  cells,  for  a 
period  of  over  three  weeks  I  was  denied  a  bath.  I  do 
not  regret  this  deprivation,  for  the  attendants,  who  at  the 
beginning  were  unfriendly,  might  have  forced  me  to  bathe  in 
water  which  had  first  served  for  several  other  patients. 
Though  such  an  unsanitary  and  disgusting  practice  was 
contrary  to  rules,  it  was  often  indulged  in  by  the  lazy 
brutes  who  controlled  the  ward.  Investigation  has  con- 
vinced me  that  this  evil  is  widespread. 

I  continued  to  object  to  the  unsatisfactory  portions  of  food 
served  me,  and  perhaps  my  objections  were  intensified  by  an 
approaching  Thanksgiving.  My  projected  Thanksgiving 
trip  to  New  Haven  had  vanished  from  my  mind,  and  my 
actual  experience  on  that  day  was  in  dismal  contrast  to 
what  I  had  originally  planned  for  myself.  My  attendant, 
in  the  unaccustomed  guise  of  a  ministering  angel,  brought 
me  the  usual  turkey  and  cranberry  dinner  which,  on  two  of 
the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days  of  each  year,  is  pro- 
vided by  an  intermittently  generous  State.  Turkey  being 
the  rara  avis  of  the  imprisoned,  it  was  but  natural  that  I 
should  desire  to  gratify  a  palate  long  insulted.  I  wished  not 
only  to  satisfy  my  appetite  but  to  impress  indelibly  a  mem- 
ory which  for  months  had  not  responded  to  so  agreeable  a 
stimulus.     While  lingering  over  the  delights  of  this  experi- 

159 


l6o  A  MIND  THAT  FOXJND  ITSELF 

ence  I  forgot  all  about  the  ministering  angel.  But  not  for 
long.  He  soon  returned.  Observing  that  I  had  scarcely 
touched  my  feast  he  said,  "If  you  don't  eat  that  dinner 
in  a  hurry  I'll  take  it  from  you." 

"I  don't  see  what  difference  it  makes  to  you  whether  I 
eat  it  in  a  hurry  or  take  my  time  about  it,"  said  I.  "It's 
the  best  I've  had  in  many  a  day,  and  I  have  a  right  to  get  as 
paiich  pleasure  out  of  it  as  I  can." 

1  "We'll  see  about  that,"  said  he,  and,  snatching  it  away,  he 
y  stalked  out  of  the  room,  leaving  me  to  satisfy  my  hunger  on  the 
/  memory  of  vanished  luxuries.  Thus  did  a  feast  become  a  fast. 
^  Under  this  treatment  I  soon  learned  to  be  more  noisy 
than  my  neighbors.  I  was  never  without  a  certain  humor 
in  contemplating  not  only  my  surroundings,  but  myself; 
and  the  demonstrations  in  which  I  began  to  indulge  were 
partly  in  fun  and  partly  by  way  of  protest.  In  these  I  was 
assisted,  and,  at  times  inspired,  by  a  young  man  in  the  room 
next  mine.  He  was  about  my  own  age  and  was  enjoying 
the  same  phase  of  exuberance  as  myself.  Not  realizing 
that  most  of  our  ward-mates  were  less  mad  than  we  —  or 
than  we  were  supposed  to  be  —  we  talked  and  sang  at  all 
hours  of  the  night.  At  the  time  we  believed  that  the  other 
patients  enjoyed  the  spice  which  we  added  to  the  restricted 
variety  of  their  lives,  but  later  I  learned  that  a  majority  of 
them  looked  upon  us  as  mere  nuisances. 

We  gave  the  doctors  and  attendants  no  rest  —  at  least 
not  intentionally.  Whenever  the  assistant  physician  ap- 
peared we  upbraided  him  for  the  neglect  which  was 
then  our  portion.  At  one  time  or  another  we  got  ourselves 
banished  to  the  "Bull  Pen"  for  these  indiscretions.  Had 
there  been  a  viler  place  of  confinement  still,  our  perform- 
ances in  the  "Bull  Pen"  undoubtedly  would  have  brought 
us  to  it.     But  there  was  neither  justice  nor  remedial  effect 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  i6i 

in  such  procedure.  At  last  the  doctor  hit  upon  the  expedient 
of  transferring  me  to  a  room  more  remote  from  my  inspir- 
ing, and,  I  may  say,  conspiring  companion.  Talking  to 
each  other  ceased  to  be  the  easy  pastime  it  had  been; 
so  we  gradually  lapsed  into  a  comparative  silence  which 
must  have  proved  a  boon  to  our  ward-mates.  The  only 
annoyances  to  which  a  number  of  the  patients  were  now 
subjected  during  the  night  were  the  disturbing  noises  which 
issued  with  irregularity,  but  unfortunate  certainty,  from  the 
"Bull  Pen." 

On  several  occasions  I  perfected  plans  to  escape, — and  not 
only  that  but  also  to  liberate  others.  That  I  did  not  make 
the  attempt  was  the  fault  —  or  merit,  perhaps  —  of  a  certain 
night-watch,  whose  timidity,  rather  than  sagacity,  impelled 
him  to  refuse  to  unlock  my  door  early  one  morning,  although 
I  gave  him  a  plausible  reason  for  the  request.  This  night- 
watch,  I  learned  later,  admitted  that  he  feared  to  encounter 
me  single-handed.  And  on  this  particular  occasion  well 
might  he,  for,  during  the  night,  I  had  woven  a  spider-web 
net,  in  which  I  intended  to  enmesh  him.  Had  I  succeeded 
there  would  have  been  a  lively  hour  for  him  in  the  violent 
ward  —  had  I  failed  there  would  have  been  a  Hvely  hour 
for  me.  There  were  several  comparatively  sane  patients 
(especially  my  elated  neighbor)  whose  willing  assistance  I 
could  have  secured.  Then  the  regular  attendants  could 
have  been  held  prisoners  in  their  own  room,  if,  indeed,  we  had 
not  in  turn  overpowered  them  and  transferred  them  to  the 
"Bull  Pen"  where  the  several  victims  of  their  abuse  might 
have  given  them  a  deserved  dose  of  their  own  medicine. 
This  scheme  of  mine  was  a  prank  rather  than  a  plot.  I  had 
an  inordinate  desire  to  prove  that  one  could  escape  if  he  had 
a  mind  to  do  so.  Later  I  boasted  to  the  assistant  physician 
of  my  unsuccessful  attempt  to  escape. 


1 62  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

My  punishment  for  harmless  antics  of  this  sort  was  prompt 
in  coming.  The  attendants  seemed  to  think  their  whole 
duty  to  their  closely  confined  charges  consisted  in  delivering 
three  meals  a  day.  Between  meals  he  was  a  rash  patient 
who  interfered  with  their  leisure.  Now  one  of  my  greatest 
crosses  was  the  attendants'  continued  refusal  to  give  me  a 
drink  when  I  asked  for  it.  Except  at  meals,  or  on  those  rare 
occasions  when  I  was  permitted  to  go  to  the  wash-room,  I 
had  to  get  along  as  best  I  might  with  no  water,  and  that  too 
at  a  time  when  I  was  in  a  fever  of  excitement.  My  polite 
requests  were  ignored;  impolite  demands  were  answered 
with  threats  and  curses.  And  this  war  of  requests,  demands, 
threats,  and  curses  continued  until  the  night  of  the  fourth 
day  of  my  banishment.  Then  the  attendants  made  good 
their  threats  of  assault.  That  they  had  been  trying  to  goad 
me  into  a  fighting  mood  I  well  knew,  and  often  accused 
them  of  their  mean  purpose.  They  brazenly  admitted  that 
they  were  simply  waiting  for  a  chance  to  "slug"  me,  and 
promised  to  punish  me  well  as  soon  as  I  should  give  them 
a  slight  excuse  for  doing  so. 

On  the  night  of  November  25th,  1902,  the  head  attendant 
and  one  of  his  assistants  passed  my  door.  They  were  re- 
turning from  one  of  the  dances  which,  at  intervals  during 
the  winter,  the  management  provides  for  the  attaches. 
While  they  were  within  hearing  I  asked  for  a  drink  of  water. 
It  was  a  carefully  worded  request.  But  they  were  in  a  hurry 
to  get  to  bed,  and  refused  me  with  curses.  Then  I  replied 
in  kind. 

"If  I  come  there  I'll  kill  you,"  said  one  of  the  attendants. 

"Well,  you  won't  get  in  if  I  can  help  it,"  said  I,  as  I  braced 
my  iron  bedstead  against  the  door. 

My  defiance  and  defences  gave  the  attendants  the  pre- 
text for  which  they  had  been  waiting;  and  my  success  in 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  163 

keeping  them  out  for  two  or  three  minutes  only  served  to 
enrage  them.  By  the  time  they  had  gained  entrance  they 
had  become  furies.  One  of  the  attendants  was  a  young  man 
of  twenty-seven.  Physically  he  was  a  perfect  specimen  of 
manhood ;  morally  he  was  deficient,  —  thanks  to  the  de- 
humanizing eifect  of  several  years  in  the  employ  of  different 
States  of  the  Union  which  countenance  improper  methods 
in  the  care  of  their  insane  wards.  It  was  he  who  attacked 
me  in  the  dark  of  my  prison  room.  The  head  attendant 
stood  by,  holding  a  lantern  which  shed  a  dim  light. 

The  door  once  open,  I  offered  no  further  resistance.  First 
I  was  knocked  down.  Then  for  several  minutes  I  was 
kicked  around  the  room  —  struck,  kneed  and  choked.  My 
assailant  even  attempted  to  grind  his  heel  into  my  cheek. 
In  this  he  failed,  for  I  was  there  protected  by  a  heavy  beard. 
But  my  shins,  elbows,  and  back  were  cut  by  his  heavy 
shoes;  and  had  I  not  instinctively  drawn  up  my  knees  to  my 
elbows  for  the  protection  of  my  body  I  should  have  been 
seriously,  perhaps  fatally,  injured.  As  it  was,  I  was  severely 
cut  and  bruised.  When  my  strength  was  nearly  gone  I 
feigned  unconsciousness.  This  ruse  alone  saved  me  from 
further  punishment,  for  no  premeditated  assault  is  ever 
ended  until  the  patient  is  mute  and  helpless.  When  they 
had  accomplished  their  purpose,  they  left  me  huddled  in  a 
corner  to  wear  out  the  night  as  best  I  might  —  to  live  or 

Idie  for  all  they  cared. 

'       Strange  as  it  may  seem  I  slept  well.     But  not  at  once. 

•  Within  five  minutes  I  was  busily  engaged  writing  an  account 
of  the  assault.  A  trained  war-correspondent  could  not  have 
pulled  himself  together  in  less  time.  As  usual  I  had  re- 
course to  my  bit  of  contraband  lead  pencil  —  this  time  a 
pencil  which  had  been  smuggled  to  me  the  very  first  day  of 
my  confinement  in  the  BuU  Pen  by  a  sympathetic  feUow- 


l64  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

patient.  When  he  had  pushed  under  my  cell  door  that  little 
implement  of  war  it  had  loomed  as  large  in  my  mind  as  a 
battering-ram.  Paper  I  had  none;  but  I  had  previously 
found  walls  to  be  a  fair  substitute.  I  therefore  now  selected 
and  wrote  upon  a  rectangular  spot  —  about  three  feet  by 
two  —  which  marked  the  reflection  of  a  light  in  the 
corridor  just  without  my  transom.  Among  my  collection 
of  genuine  human  documents  I  still  have  a  verbatim  copy 
of  my  midnight  inscription. 

The  next  morning  when  the  assistant  physician  appeared 
he  was  accompanied  as  usual  by  the  guilty  head-attendant 
who,  on  the  previous  night,  had  held  the  lantern  during  his 
vicious  partner's  assault. 

"Doctor,"  said  I,  "I  have  something  to  tell  you,"  —  and 
I  glanced  significantly  at  the  attendant.  "Last  night  I  had 
a  most  imusual  experience.  I  have  had  many  imaginary 
experiences  during  the  past  two  years  and  a  half,  and  it  may 
be  that  last  night's  was  not  real.  Perhaps  the  whole  thing 
was  phantasmagoric  —  like  what  I  used  to  see  during  the 
first  months  of  my  illness.  Whether  it  was  so  or  not  I  shall 
leave  you  to  judge.  It  just  happens  to  be  my  impression 
that  I  was  brutally  assaulted  last  night.  If  it  was  a  dream 
it  is  the  first  thing  of  the  kind  that  ever  left  visible  evidence 
on  my  body." 

With  that  I  uncovered  to  the  doctor  a  score  of  bruises  and 
lacerations.  I  knew  these  would  be  more  impressive  than 
any  words  of  mine.  The  doctor  looked  wise,  but  said 
nothing  and  soon  left  the  room.  The  guilty  attendant  tried 
to  appear  unconcerned,  and  I  really  believe  he  thought  me 
not  absolutely  sure  of  the  events  of  the  previous  night,  or  at 
least  unaware  of  his  share  in  them. 

Though  the  doctor  in  his  own  mind  knew  that  I  had  been 
abused,  he   was   unable   to   secure   incriminating   evidence 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  165 

from  the  attendants.  They  of  course  lied  for  their  mutual 
protection.  They  were  too  wise  to  deny  that  they  had  en- 
tered my  room,  but  the  reasons  they  gave  for  entering  and 
their  account  of  what  followed  were  cut  from  the  black  cloth 
with  which  cowards  habitually  cloak  their  shame.  Of  all 
the  liars  in  the  world,  brute  attendants  are,  to  my  mind, 
the  meanest.  They  first  assault  an  imprisoned  insane  man 
when  there  are  no  sane  eyes  or  ears  to  bear  witness.  Then, 
taking  advantage  of  the  suspicion  with  which  the  statements 
of  the  insane  are  too  often  regarded,  they  lie  and  lie,  and 
corroborate  their  lies  according  to  the  code  of  dishonor  which 
obtains  among  them.  A  fair  idea  of  this  code  may  be  gained 
from  one  of  its  rules;  namely,  that  an  attendant  shall  delib- 
erately turn  his  back  when  another  attendant  is  assaulting 
a  patient.  By  so  doing  the  attendant  is  of  course  able  to 
tell  the  doctor  —  should  he  by  some  rare  chance  ask  —  that 
he  saw  no  patient  struck  by  the  accused.  By  telling  these 
half-truths,  attendants  are  able  to  retain  their  positions 
for  months,  sometimes  years,  —  but  only  in  institutions  where 
"Restraint"  is  countenanced. 

The  two  attendants  in  my  case  deserved  immediate  dis- 
charge. They  could  not  offer  the  excuse  of  self-defense,  for 
they  had  to  unlock  the  door  to  get  within  my  reach.  In  my 
opinion  the  doctor  was  at  fault  both  before  and  after.  Surely, 
my  wounds  should  have  had  more  weight  with  him  than  the 
palpable  lies  of  those  who  inflicted  them.  — 

I  soon  found  that  usually  a  restless  or  troublesome  patient 
placed  in  the  violent  ward  is  assaulted  the  very  first  day.  This 
procedure  seems  to  be  a  part  of  the  established  code  of  dis- 
honor. The  attendants  imagine  that  the  best  way  to  gain 
control  of  a  patient  is  to  cow  him  from  the  first.  In  fact, 
these  fellows  —  nearly  all  of  them  ignorant  and  untrained  — 
will  tell  you  that  "violent  cases"  cannot  be  handled  in  any 


i66  A    MIND     THAT     FOUND     ITSELF 

other  way.  And  in  so  saying  they  are  often  sincere.  I  recall 
the  advent  of  a  new  attendant, — a  young  man  studying  to 
become  a  physician.  At  first  he  seemed  inclined  to  treat 
patients  kindly,  but  he  soon  fell  into  brutal  ways.  His 
change  of  heart  was  due  partly  to  the  brutalizing  envi- 
ronment, but  more  directly  to  the  attitude  of  the  three 
hardened  attendants  who  mistook  his  consideration  for  cow- 
ardice and  taunted  him  for  it.  Just  to  prove  his  metal  he 
began  to  assault  patients,  and  one  day  knocked  me  down 
simply  for  refusing  to  stop  my  prattle  at  his  command.  I 
did  not  openly  resent  his  action,  for  I  knew  that  I  should 
only  be  unmercifully  beaten  for  my  temerity.  By  this  time 
I  had  learned  the  uselessness  of  physical  resistance.  For 
comfort  I  dwelt  upon  the  thought  that  I  should  one  day 
deal  a  death  blow  to  the  whole  inhuman  system  which  had 
dealt  so  many  death  blows  to  the  helpless  insane. 

I  found  also  that  an  unnecessary  and  continued  lack  of 
out-door  exercise  tends  to  multiply  deeds  of  violence.  The 
attendants  are  supposed  to  take  the  patients  for  a  walk 
at  least  once  a  day,  and  twice,  when  the  weather  permits. 
Yet  the  patients  in  the  violent  ward  (and  it  is  they  who  most 
need  the  exercise)  usually  get  out  of  doors  only  when  the 
attendants  see  fit  to  take  them.  For  weeks  a  ward-mate  — 
a  man  sane  enough  to  enjoy  freedom,  had  he  had  a  home  of 
his  own  —  kept  a  record  of  the  number  of  our  walks.  It 
showed  that  we  averaged  not  more  than  one  or  two  a  week 
for  a  period  of  two  months.  This  too  in  the  face  of  many 
pleasant  days  which  made  the  close  confinement  doubly 
irksome.  The  attendants  preferred  to  remain  in  the  ward, 
playing  cards,  smoking,  and  telling  their  kind  of  stories. 
One  other  fact  I  observed;  namely,  that  as  exercise  de- 
creased the  number  of  assaults  invariably  increased.  The 
attendants  need  regular  exercise  quite  as  much  as  the  patients 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  167 

and  when  they  fail  to  employ  their  energy  in  this  healthful 
way,  they  are  likely  to  employ  it  at  the  expense  of  the  bodUy 
comfort  of  their  helpless  charges.  It  was  only  because 
of  a  lax  system  of  supervision  that  they  were  able  thus  to 
shirk  their  duty.  Daily  reports  as  to  the  exercising  of 
patients  would  correct  this  common  evil. 

If  lack  of  exercise  produced  a  need  of  discipline,  on  the 
other  hand  each  disciplinary  move  served  only  to  inflame 
us  the  more.  Some  wild  animals  can  be  clubbed  into  a  sem- 
blance of  obedience,  yet  it  is  a  treacherous  obedience  at  best, 
and  justly  so.  And  that  is  the  only  kind  of  obedience  into 
which  a  man  can  be  clubbed.  To  imagine  otherwise  of  a 
human  being,  sane  or  insane,  is  the  very  essence  of  insanity 
itself.  A  temporary  leisure  may  be  won  for  the  aggressor, 
but,  in  the  long  run,  he  will  be  put  to  greater  inconvenience 
than  he  would  be  by  a  more  humane  method.  It  was  repres- 
sion and  wilful  frustration  which  kept  me  a  maniac  and 
made  maniacs  of  others.  Whenever  I  was  released  from  lock 
and  key  and  permitted  to  mingle  with  the  so-called  violent  pa- 
tients, I  was  surprised  to  find  that  comparatively  few  were  by 
nature  troublesome  or  noisy.  So  that  I  am  convinced  that 
hundreds  of  patients  throughout  the  country  are  improperly 
confined  in  violent  wards.  This  is  a  serious  matter;  for,  it  is 
relatively  as  unfair  to  confine  the  mildly  insane  among  mad- 
men as  to  immure  the  sane  among  the  insane.  A  patient, 
calm  in  mind  and  passive  in  behavior  three  hundred  and  sixty 
days  in  the  year,  may,  on  one  of  the  remaining  days,  commit 
some  slight  transgression,  or,  more  likely,  be  goaded  into 
one  by  an  attendant  —  or  needlessly  led  into  one  by  a 
tactless  physician.  At  once  he  is  banished  to  the  violent 
ward,  there  to  remain  for  weeks  —  perhaps  indefinitely.  His 
indiscretion  may  consist  merely  in  an  unmannerly  announce- 
ment to  the  doctor  of  how  lightly  the  latter  is  regarded  by 


1 68  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

the  patient.  Such  estimates  of  a  doctor's  capacity,  though 
insane,  are  frequently  correct,  and  proportionately  galling, 
and  their  truth,  the  subject  of  them  invariably  proves  by 
condemning  the  guilty  patient  to  a  term  of  imprisonment  in 
a  ward  of  chaos.  A  thoroughly  competent  physician  is 
seldom  vilified;  —  for,  being  competent,  he  is  able  to  win 
the  good-will  of  his  wards,  and,  should  he  occasionally  be 
consigned  to  oblivion  by  an  excited  patient,  he  disregards 
the  matter,  knowing  full  well  that  the  mouth  is  but  the  escape- 
L      valve  of  an  abnormally  active  mind. 


XXI 

The  self-control  which  had  enabled  me  to  suspend  speech 
for  a  whole  day  now  stood  me  in  good  stead.  It  enabled 
me  to  avert  much  suffering  that  would  have  been  my  portion 
had  I  been  like  the  majority  of  my  ward-mates.  Time  and 
again  I  surrendered  when  an  attendant  was  about  to  chas- 
tise me.  But  at  least  a  score  of  patients  in  this  ward  were 
not  so  well  equipped,  and  these  were  viciously  assaulted  again 
and  again  by  the  very  men  who  had  so  thoroughly  initiated 
me  into  the  mysteries  of  their  black  art. 

I  set  myself  up  as  the  observer  and  the  reporter  of  abuses. 
My  observations  convinced  me  of  an  anomaly;  namely,  that 
the  only  patients  in  a  hospital  for  the  insane  who  are  not 
likely  to  be  subjected  to  abuse  are  the  very  ones  least  in  need 
of  care  and  treatment.  The  violent,  noisy,  and  troublesome 
patient  is  abused  because  he  is  violent,  noisy,  and  trouble- 
some. The  patient  too  weak  physically  or  mentally  to 
attend  to  his  own  wants  is  frequently  abused  because  of  that 
very  helplessness  which  makes  it  necessary  for  the  attend- 
ants to  wait  upon  him.  And  so  of  the  forty  men  in  the  vio- 
lent ward  during  my  fourteen  weeks  of  confinement  there, 
at  least  twenty  were  at  one  time  or  another  viciously  beaten 
by  some  one  of  the  three  attendants,  frequently  by  two  at  once. 

Like  fires  and  railroad  disasters,  assaults  seem  to  come 
in  groups.  Sometimes  days  will  pass  without  a  single  out- 
break. Then  will  come  a  veritable  carnival  of  abuse  — 
due  invariably  to  the  attendants'  state  of  mind,  not  to  an 
unwonted  aggressiveness  on  the  part  of  the  patients.     The 

169 


I70  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

beatings  which,  by  reason  of  my  superior  discretion,  I  escaped 
scarcely  diminished  the  sum  of  punishment.  I  can  recall 
as  especially  noteworthy  ten  instances  of  atrocious  abuse. 
Five  patients  were  chronic  victims,  beaten  frequently  as  I 
was  on  that  night  when  two  attendants  broke  into  my  room. 
Three  of  them,  peculiarly  irresponsible,  suffered  with  es- 
pecial regularity,  scarcely  a  day  passing  without  bringing 
to  them  its  quota  of  punishment.  One  of  these,  almost  an 
idiot,  and  quite  too  inarticulate  to  tell  a  convincing  story 
even  under  the  most  favorable  conditions,  became  so  cowed 
that,  whenever  an  attendant  passed,  he  would  circle  his 
oppressor  as  a  whipped  cur  circles  a  cruel  master.  I  saw 
him  do  so  time  and  again.  If  his  avoidance  became  too 
marked  the  attendant  would  then  and  there  chastise  him  for 
the  implied  but  unconscious  insult. 

There  was  a  young  man,  occupying  a  cell  next  to  mine  in 
the  Bull  Pen,  who  was  so  far  out  of  his  mind  as  to  be  abso- 
lutely irresponsible.  His  offense  was  that  he  could  not 
comprehend  and  obey.  Compared  to  his  abuse,  all  that  I 
suffered  in  the  Bull  Pen  was  as  nothing.  Day  after  day  I 
could  hear  the  blows  and  kicks  as  they  fell  upon  his  body, 
and  his  incoherent  cries  for  mercy  were  as  painful  to  hear 
as  they  are  impossible  to  forget.  That  he  survived  and  to-day 
is  dragging  out  an  existence  in  an  asylum,  is  surprising.  It 
is  true,  I  believe,  that  his  form  of  insanity  is  considered 
incurable ;  but  that  is  an  additional  consideration  in  favor  of 
kind  treatment. 

What  wonder  that  this  man  who  was  "violent,"  or  who  was 
made  violent,  would  not  permit  the  attendants  to  dress  him ! 
But  he  had  a  half-witted  friend,  a  ward-mate,  who  could 
coax  him  into  his  clothes  during  the  time  when  his  oppres- 
sors found  him  most  intractable.  STe«  an  insane  man 
can  distinguish  between  friend  and  foe.  '  .i\. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  17 1 

Of  all  the  patients  known  to  me,  one  incoherent  and  irre- 
sponsible man  of  sixty  years  I  saw  assaulted  with  the  great- 
est frequency.  This  patient  was  restless  and  forever 
talking  or  shouting,  as  any  man  might  if  oppressed  by  his 
delusions.  He  was  profoundly  convinced  that  a  certain 
person  had  stolen  his  stomach  —  an  idea  inspired  perhaps 
by  the  remarkable  corpulency  of  the  person  he  accused.  His 
loss  he  would  wofully  voice  even  while  eating.  Of  course, 
argument  to  the  contrary  had  no  effect;  and  his  monotonous 
recital  of  his  imaginary  troubles  made  him  unpopular  with 
the  attendants.  They  showed  him  no  mercy.  Each  day 
—  including  the  hours  of  the  night,  when  the  night-watch 
took  a  hand  —  he  was  belabored  with  fists,  broom-handles, 
and  frequently  with  the  heavy  bunch  of  keys  which  attend- 
ants usually  carry  on  a  long  chain.  He  was  kicked  and 
choked,  and  his  suffering  was  aggravated  by  his  almost 
continuous  confinement  in  the  Bull  Pen.  An  exception  to 
the  general  rule  (for  such  continued  abuse  often  causes 
death)  this  man  lived  a  long  time  —  five  years. 

Another  victim,  forty-five  years  of  age,  was  one  who  had 
formerly  been  a  successful  man  of  affairs.  His  was  a  force- 
ful personality,  and  the  traits  of  his  sane  days  influenced 
his  conduct  when  he  became  insane.  He  was  in  the  expan- 
sive phase  of  paresis,  a  phase  distinguished  by  an  exaggerated 
sense  of  well-being  —  for  delusions  of  grandeur  are  a  symp- 
tom of  this  form  as  well  as  of  several  other  forms  of  insanity. 
Paresis,  as  everyone  knows,  is  incurable.  Its  victim  is 
doomed  —  death  usually  following  within  three  years  of 
the  onset  of  the  disease.  In  this  instance,  instead  of 
trying  to  make  the  patient's  last  months  on  earth  comfort- 
able, the  attendants  subjected  him  to  a  course  of  treatment 
severe  enough  to  have  sent  even  a  sound  man  to  an  early 
grave.    I  endured  privations  and  severe  abuse  for  one  month 


172  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF 

at  the  State  Hospital.  This  man  suffered  in  all  ways  worse 
treatment  for  many  months  —  until  finally  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  a  ward  where  he  received  kinder  treatment.  He 
still  lives,  —  another  example  of  man's  endurance, 

I  became  well  acquainted  with  two  jovial  and  witty  Irish- 
men. They  were  common  laborers.  One  was  a  hod-carrier, 
and  a  strapping  fellow.  When  he  arrived  at  the  institution 
he  was  suffering  with  alcoholic  delusional  insanity  —  a  cur- 
able form.  He  was  at  once  placed  in  the  violent  ward, 
though  his  "violence"  consisted  of  nothing  more  than  an  an- 
noying sort  of  irresponsibility.  He  irritated  the  attendants 
by  persistently  doing  certain  trivial  things  after  they  had 
been  forbidden.  For  instance,  the  door  to  a  certain  room 
he  would  open  and  re-open,  undoubtedly  in  response  to  "false 
voices"  which  perhaps  commanded  him  to  do  so.  The  at- 
tendants made  no  allowance  for  his  condition  of  mind.  His 
repetition  of  a  forbidden  act  was  interpreted  as  deliberate 
disobedience.  He  was  physically  powerful,  and  they  deter- 
mined to  cow  him.  Of  the  master  assault  by  which  this  was 
sought  to  be  accomplished  I  was  not  an  eye-witness.  But 
I  was  an  ear-witness.  It  was  committed  behind  a  closed 
door;  and  I  heard  the  dull  thuds  of  the  blows,  and  I  heard 
the  cries  for  mercy  until  there  was  no  breath  left  the  man  with 
which  he  could  beg  even  for  his  life.  For  days,  that  wrecked 
Hercules  dragged  himself  about  the  ward  moaning  pitifully. 
He  complained  of  pain  in  his  side  and  had  difficulty  in 
breathing,  which  would  seem  to  indicate  that  some  of  his 
ribs  had  been  fractured.  This  man  was  often  punished, 
frequently  for  complaining  of  the  torture  already  inflicted. 
But  later,  when  he  began  to  return  to  the  normal,  his  good- 
humor  and  native  wit  won  for  him  an  increasing  degree  of 
good  treatment. 

The  other  Irishman's  arch  offense  —  a  symptom  of  his 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  173 

disease  —  was  that  he  gabbled  incessantly.  He  could  no 
more  stop  talking  than  he  could  right  his  reason  on  com- 
mand. Yet  his  failure  to  become  silent  at  a  word  was  the 
signal  for  punishment.  On  one  occasion  an  attendant  or- 
dered him  to  stop  talking  and  take  a  seat  at  the  further  end 
of  the  corridor,  about  forty  feet  distant.  He  was  doing  his 
best  to  obey,  even  running  to  keep  ahead  of  the  attendant  at 
his  heels.  As  they  passed  the  spot  where  I  was  sitting,  the 
attendant  felled  him  with  a  blow  behind  the  ear;  and,  in 
falhng,  the  patient's  head  barely  missed  the  wall. 

Addressing  me,  the  attendant  said,  "Did  you  see  that?" 

"Yes,"  I  rephed,  "and  I'll  not  forget  it." 

"Be  sure  to  report  it  to  the  doctor,"  said  he  —  a  remark 
which  showed  his  contempt,  not  only  for  me  but  for  those  in 
authority;  and  this  contempt  the  latter  at  least  had  earned 
by  their  leniency  and  indifference. 

The  reader  will  already  have  observed  that  the  years  of  the 
patient  are  no  protection.  The  attendant  who  had  so  terribly 
beaten  me  was  particularly  flagrant  in  ignoring  the  claims 
of  age.  On  more  than  one  occasion  he  viciously  attacked 
a  man  of  over  fifty,  who,  because  of  his  affliction  (paresis) 
was  virtually  a  man  of  seventy.  He  was  a  Yankee  sailing- 
master,  who,  in  his  prime,  could  have  thrashed  his  assailant 
with  ease  and  thrown  him  into  the  sea.  But  now  he  was 
helpless  and  could  only  submit.  However,  this  man  was 
not  utterly  abandoned  by  his  old  world.  His  wife  called 
often  to  see  him;  and,  because  of  his  condition,  she  was  per- 
mitted to  visit  him  in  his  room.  Once  she  arrived  in  the 
nick  of  time  —  a  few  hours  after  her  husband  had  been 
cruelly  beaten.  Naturally  she  asked  the  attendants  how  he 
had  come  by  the  hurts  —  the  blackened  eye  and  bruised 
head.  True  to  the  code,  they  lied,  and  declared  that  the 
patient  had  fallen  out  of  bed,  or  stumbled  against  the  wall. 


174  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

The  good  wife,  perhaps  herself  a  Yankee,  was  not  thus  to  be 
fooled ;  and  her  growing  belief  that  her  husband  had  been  as- 
saulted was  confirmed  by  a  sight  she  saw  before  her  visit 
was  ended.  Another  patient  —  a  Frenchman,  who  was  a 
target  for  abuse  —  was  knocked  fiat  two  or  three  times  as 
he  was  roughly  forced  along  the  corridor  by  an  attendant. 
I  saw  this  little  affair  and  I  saw  that  the  good  wife  saw  it. 
The  next  day  she  called  again  and  took  her  husband  home. 
And  so  this  distressed  woman  felt  it  her  duty  to  assume  en- 
tire charge  of  her  mad  and  really  dangerous  husband.  The 
result  was  that  after  a  few  (probably  sleepless)  nights,  she 
had  to  return  him  to  the  asylum  and  trust  to  God  rather  than 
the  State  to  protect  him. 

Still  another  victim  was  a  man  sixty  years  of  age.  He 
was  quite  inoffensive,  and  no  patient  in  the  ward  seemed 
to  attend  more  strictly  to  his  own  business.  Shortly  after 
my  transfer  from  the  violent  ward  this  old  man  was  wantonly 
attacked  by  an  attendant  who  broke  the  patient's  arm. 
The  attendant  (the  man  who  had  so  viciously  assaulted 
me)  was  summarily  discharged.  Unfortunately,  however, 
the  relief  afforded  the  insane  was  slight  and  brief,  for  this 
same  brute  (as  I  have  since  ascertained)  soon  secured  a 
position  in  an  asylum  a  thousand  miles  distant,  where,  no 
doubt,  he  continues  to  indulge  his  base  proclivities. 

Death  by  violence  in  a  violent  ward  is  after  all  not  an  un- 
natural death  —  for  a  violent  ward.  The  patient  of  whom 
I  am  about  to  speak  was  also  an  old  man  —  over  sixty.  Both 
physically  and  mentally  he  was  a  wreck.  On  being  brought 
to  the  institution  he  was  at  once  placed  in  a  cell  in  the  Bull 
Pen,  probably  because  of  his  previous  history  for  violence 
while  delirious  at  his  own  home.  But  his  violence  (if  it 
ever  existed)  had  already  spent  itself,  and  had  come  to  be 
nothing  more  than  an  utter  incapacity  to  obey.    His  offense 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  175 

was  that  he  was  too  weak  to  attend  to  his  common  wants. 
The  day  after  this  patient's  arrival,  shortly  before  noon, 
he  lay  stark  naked  and  helpless  upon  the  bed  in  his  cell. 
This  I  know,  for  I  went  to  investigate  immediately  after  a 
ward-mate  had  informed  me  of  the  vicious  way  in  which 
the  head- attendant  had  assaulted  the  sick  man.  My  in- 
formant was  a  man  whose  word  regarding  an  incident  of 
this  character  I  would  take  as  readily  as  that  of  any  man  I 
know.  He  came  to  me,  knowing  that  I  had  taken  upon 
myself  the  duty  of  reporting  such  abominations.  My  in- 
formant feared  to  take  the  initiative,  for,  like  many  other 
patients  who  believe  themselves  doomed  to  continued  con- 
finement, he  feared  to  invite  abuse  at  the  hands  of  revengeful 
attendants.  I  therefore  promised  him  that  I  would  report 
the  case  as  soon  as  I  had  an  opportimity. 

All  day  long  the  victim  of  the  attendant's  unmanly  passion 
lay  in  his  cell  in  what  seemed  to  be  a  semi-conscious  con- 
dition. I  took  particular  pains  to  observe  his  condition,  for 
I  felt  that  the  assault  of  the  morning  might  result  in  death. 
That  night,  after  the  doctor's  regular  tour  of  inspection,  the 
patient  in  question  was  transferred  to  a  room  next  my  own. 
The  mode  of  transfer  impressed  itself  upon  my  memory. 
Two  attendants  —  one  of  them  was  he  who  had  so  brutally 
beaten  the  patient  —  placed  the  man  in  a  sheet  and,  each 
taking  an  end,  carried  the  hammock-like  contrivance,  with 
its  inert  contents,  to  what  proved  to  be  its  last  resting-place 
above  ground.  Though  I  cannot  say  that  the  patient's 
body  slid  or  struck  against  the  floor  as  the  attendants  pro- 
ceeded, the  chances  are  that  men  who  could  assault  the  help- 
less would  not  be  likely  to  guard  against  that  possibility. 
At  least  I  noted  this:  the  attendants  seemed  as  much  con- 
cerned about  their  burden  as  one  might  about  a  dog  in  a 
sack,  weighted  and  ready  for  the  river. 


176  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF 

That  night  the  patient  died.  Whether  he  was  murdered 
none  can  ever  know.  But  it  is  my  honest  opinion  that  he 
was.  Though  he  might  never  have  recovered,  it  is  plain 
that  he  would  have  lived  days,  perhaps  months.  And,  had 
he  been  humanely,  nay,  scientifically,  treated,  who  can  say 
that  he  might  not  have  been  restored  to  health  and  home,  and 
to-day  be  enjoying  life  as  is  the  man  who  had  perhaps 
murdered  him. 

According  to  the  hospital  records  this  death  was  not  other 
than  a  natural  death.  No  autopsy  was  performed,  which 
fact,  in  itself,  shows  that  the  doctors  did  not  suspect  that  the 
patient  had  been  maltreated;  for  it  is  customary  to  perform 
autopsies  when  incriminating  evidence  of  abuse  is  discov- 
ered. But,  had  there  been  an  autopsy,  revealing  guilt,  — 
what  then?  In  all  probability,  no  arrests  would  have  been 
made,  as  hospital  officials  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  secure 
evidence  sufficient  to  convict.  Conceding  that  it  is  difficult 
to  secure  such  ei-idence,  I  will  not  admit  that  rigorous  and 
intelligent  action  on  the  part  of  those  in  authority  would  never 
result  in  the  conviction  of  attendants  guilty  of  assault  or 
murder;  much  less  will  I  admit  that  the  neglect  of  such  ac- 
tion, even  if  uncertain  of  success,  is  ever  excusable.  Hos- 
pital officials,  public  prosecutors,  and  jurors,  should  bear  in 
mind  that,  at  trials  for  such  crimes,  the  word  of  a  patient, 
sane  enough  to  testify  at  all,  should  have  greater  weight  than 
the  word  of  an  attendant  whose  self-interest  or  cowardice 
will  so  often  cause  him  to  perjure  himself.  Further,  those 
whose  duty  it  is  to  apprehend  and  punish  criminals  should 
remember  that  there  are  to  be  found  in  every  institution 
attendants  possessed  of  a  high  sense  of  honor.  These  will 
not  hesitate,  under  right  conditions,  to  testify  against  a 
guilty  co-worker. 

It  is  to  an  attendant  of  this  type  that  I  shall  look  for  con- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  177 

vincing  corroboration.  His  is  the  same  story  as  mine,  though 
told  of  a  different  institution.  I  resort  to  it  here  at  the  cost 
of  digression;  for,  though  I  believe  my  statements  alone  will 
convince  the  average  reader,  surely  the  corroborating  words 
of  a  man  always  sane  will  put  my  story  beyond  suspicion,  and 
at  the  same  time  show  that  attendants  placed  under  similar 
brutalizing  conditions,  the  country  over,  will  behave  similarly. 

While  this  book  was  still  in  draft,  I  came,  by  mere  chance, 
upon  a  report  which  appeared  in  the  Courier- Journal  of 
Louisville,  Kentucky,  of  the  date,  September  i8th,  1906.  It 
was  written  by  a  young  lawyer,  a  resident  of  Lexington. 
This  man,  during  the  early  summer  of  1906,  had  worked  as 
an  attendant  in  the  Eastern  Kentucky  Asylum  for  the  In- 
sane, at  Lexington.  He  was  impelled  to  enter  the  hospital 
as  an  attendant  by  the  belief  that  a  knowledge  of  insanity 
might  prove  of  value  when  he  should  engage  in  the  practice 
of  law.  He  did  not  enter  the  employ  of  the  State  with  the 
thought  of  effecting  reform,  for  the  simple  reason,  as  he 
told  me  afterwards,  that  he  was  totally  ignorant  of  the  neces- 
sity for  reform.  The  evil  conditions  he  discovered  shocked 
him  quite  as  much  as  his  revelations  later  shocked  an  igno- 
rant public. 

There  was  a  homicide  connected  with  this  Kentucky  affair. 
The  victim  was  a  man  thirty-seven  years  of  age.  Prior  to 
his  collapse  he  had  held  a  responsible  position  in  a  large 
rolling-mill.  Working  by  day  in  the  exhausting  heat  of  a 
blast-furnace,  and  at  night  nursing  a  sick  wife,  he  finally 
lost  his  reason.  He  was  at  once  committed  to  the  State 
Hospital.  Had  he  received  the  treatment  he  deserved,  prob- 
ably he  would  have  recovered,  for  his  form  of  insanity  was 
curable.  But  punishment,  not  treatment,  was  to  be  his  cruel 
portion.  It  was  administered  with  such  severity  that  he 
died.  This  fact  was  proved  at  the  trial  of  the  guiltiest  at- 
13 


178  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

tendant,  who,  together  with  another  attendant,  was  convicted 
of  manslaughter  and  sent  to  State's  Prison.  Had  they  killed 
a  sane  person,  I  believe  they  would  now  be  serving  Hfe-sen- 
tences,  if,  indeed,  they  had  not  been  justly  condemned  to 
death. 

Another  instance  of  this  sort  of  homicide  occurred  in 
Vermont.  An  infirm  old  man,  eighty  years  of  age,  was  wan- 
tonly attacked  and  killed  by  two  attendants  within  a  week  of 
his  commitment.  He  was  a  French- Canadian  whose  under- 
standing of  English  had  been  none  too  good  while  he  was 
sane.  When  his  skill  in  a  foreign  tongue  had  been  further 
impaired  by  a  clouded  understanding,  he  was  of  course 
doubly  helpless.  Failing  to  obey  the  command  of  an  attend- 
ant with  that  promptness  which  conduces  to  personal  safety, 
he  was  attacked  and  struck  with  such  force  that  several  ribs 
were  broken.  The  shock  of  it  all  caused  his  death.  The 
attendants  were  indicted  for  manslaughter,  and  placed  under 
bonds  of  eighteen  hundred  dollars  each.  When  called  to 
trial  the  more  culpable  of  the  two,  rather  than  risk  his 
liberty,  forfeited  his  bond  and,  as  this  book  goes  to  press, 
has  not  yet  been  apprehended.  The  other  attendant  ap- 
peared, but,  thus  far,  has  not  been  tried.  That  men  guilty 
of  such  brutality  should  be  given  an  opportunity  to  purchase 
their  freedom  by  forfeiting  a  small  bond  is  simply  another  of 
the  many  injustices  legally  imposed  upon  the  insane.^ 

The  young  man  who  was  for  a  time  my  neighbor  in  the 
violent  ward,   and  my  companion  in  mischief,   was   also 

^  Readers  of  "Hard  Cash"  may  not  be  familiar  with  the  public  corre- 
spondence into  which  it  drew  its  author,  Charles  Reade.  His  letter  of  Jan- 
uary 17th,  1870,  in  the  Pa//  Mall  Gazette,  shows  how  the  ribs  of  insane  patients 
could  be  and  were  broken  by  brutal  keepers  with  such  fiendish  skill  as  even  to 
leave  no  external  evidence  on  the  body  of  the  victim;  and  that  letter  shows 
also  how  prevalent  then  were  atrocities  of  the  kind  I  have  been  describing, 
and  how  easy  it  was  for  their  perpetrators  to  escape  punishment. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  179 

terribly  abused.  This  man  possessed  a  distinctive  and  inter- 
esting personality.  To-day,  could  I  enjoy  his  companion- 
ship, I  should  rank  him  high  on  my  list  of  those  whose 
companionship  I  crave.  I  am  sure  I  do  not  exaggerate  when 
I  say  that  on  ten  occasions,  within  a  period  of  two  months, 
this  man  was  cruelly  assaulted  —  and  I  do  not  know  how 
many  times  he  suffered  assaults  of  less  severity.  After  one 
of  these  doses  of  immerited  punishment  I  asked  him  why  he 
persisted  in  his  petty  transgressions  when  he  knew  that  he 
thereby  invited  such  body-racking  abuse. 

"Oh,"  said  he,  laconically,  "I  need  the  exercise." 
To  my  mind,  the  man  who,  with  such  gracious  humor, 
could  refer  to  what  was  in  reality  torture,  deserved  to  live 
a  century.  But  an  unkind  fate  decreed  that  he  should  die 
young  —  and  by  his  own  hand.  Ten  months  after  his  com- 
mitment to  the  State  Hospital  he  was  discharged  as  improved 
—  but  not  cured.  This  is  not  an  unusual  procedure;  nor 
was  it  in  his  case  apparently  an  unwise  one,  for  the  patient 
seemed  fit  for  freedom.  During  his  first  month  of  regained 
liberty,  this  young  man  hanged  himself.  No  message  of 
excuse  did  he  leave.  In  my  opinion,  none  was  necessary. 
For  aught  any  man  knows,  the  memories  of  the  abuse,  tor- 
ture, and  injustice,  which  were  so  long  his  portion,  may  have 
proved  to  be  the  last  straw  which  overbalanced  the  desire  to 
live.  The  doctors  will  say,  and  truthfully,  that  it  was  a  sui- 
cidal impulse  which  drove  him  to  his  death.  But  can  they 
surely  deny  that  that  suicidal  impulse  might  never  have 
gained  control  had  he  been  committed  to  an  institution  where 
not  only  he,  but  all  other  patients  would  have  been  treated 
kindly  and  scientifically  ?  Surely,  if  thousands  who  contem- 
plate suicide  stop  short  of  it  because  of  some  little  circum- 
stance, saved  by  a  narrow  margin,  is  it  not  equally  true  that 
an  adverse  circumstance  may  drive  a  desperate  person  over 
the  final  brink  to  his  death  ? 


l8o  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

I  know  of  two  other  instances  of  young  men  of  about  my 
own  age  who  committed  suicide  shortly  after  release  from 
their  places  of  confinement.  These  two  had  been  inmates 
of  the  large  private  hospital  where  I  had  suffered  in  the  strait- 
jacket.  So  far  as  I  know  neither  of  them  was  subjected  to 
abuse  while  there.  But  one  of  them  who  was  confined  in  the 
violent  ward  must  have  seen  patients  abused.  The  other, 
who  I  think  would  have  recovered  had  he  been  skilfully  tided 
over  his  despondent  period,  was  not  at  any  time  confined  in 
a  violent  ward.  But,  if  he  did  not  see  others  roughly  han- 
dled, of  course  he  heard  the  ever-present  rumors  of  abuse. 
Such  rumors  are  common  topics  of  conversation  in  all 
asylums,  and  they  undoubtedly  have  a  depressing  effect 
upon  those  who  need  little  to  convince  them  that  life  is  not 
worth  living.  When  a  patient  is  discharged  and  enters 
his  old  world,  is  it  surprising  that  sometimes  he  should 
choose  death  rather  than  take  the  chance  of  again  enter- 
ing a  place  which  to  him  is  worse  than  the  grave  itseM  ? 

If  I  were  to  recount  each  instance  of  cruelty  (major  and 
petty)  which  I  can  recall,  my  chapter  on  abuse  would  soon 
become  a  book  of  itself.  And,  if  it  were  possible  to  put  in 
book  form  the  stories  of  the  lives  of  persons  who  have  suffered 
experiences  such  as  mine,  I  firmly  believe  it  would  take  sev- 
eral thousand  feet  of  shelving  in  a  Congressional  Library  to 
hold  this  record  of  Man's  inhumanity  to  Man.  Fortunately 
no  such  collection  of  woe  ever  can  be  gathered.  Read  the 
few  stories  of  this  nature  that  exist,  magnify  the  impression 
gained,  and  an  approximation  may  be  reached.  Without 
question,  during  the  past  century  hundreds  of  insane  men 
and  women  have  been  murdered  by  their  keepers.  And 
many  of  these  murders  were  as  deliberate  as  any  ever  com- 
mitted, for  attendants  frequently  hate  unto  death  certain 
of  their  troublesome  charges. 


XXII 

The  so-called  "seclusion"  vouchsafed  to  me  I  have  de- 
scribed. If  it  is  true  that  I  stood  in  need  of  seclusion  at  all, 
I  should  have  had  a  bed  in  a  room  designed  especially  for 
the  treatment  of  such  a  case  as  mine.  That  room  should 
have  been  perfectly  ventilated,  and  competent  nurses  should 
have  been  in  practically  constant  attendance.  My  every 
reasonable  wish  (and  unreasonable  whim,  if  harmless) 
should  have  been  granted.  I  should  have  had  nourishing 
food  at  proper  intervals ;  and  I  should  have  received  nothing 
but  that  kindly  treatment  which  can  do  more  toward  the 
restoration  of  mental  health  than  all  the  medicine  in  the 
world. 

Patients  are  weighed  at  stated  intervals.  Shortly  after 
entering  the  State  Hospital  I  weighed  about  one  hundred 
thirty  pounds,  and  that  must  have  been  about  my  weight  when 
transferred  to  the  "violent  ward."  Ten  days  later,  at  the 
regular  monthly  weighing,  I  weighed  only  one  hundred  fif- 
teen pounds.  Though  loss  of  weight  is  a  symptom  of  ela- 
tion, I  cannot  but  believe  that  my  rapid  decrease  was  due 
mainly  to  deprivation  and  abuse. 

Before  my  banishment  to  the  violent  ward,  the  doctor  in 
charge  of  my  case  had  granted  me  many  favors;  but  during 
the  first  ten  days  of  my  "seclusion"  my  sense  of  gratitude 
was  dulled  by  the  indignities  and  the  terrific  punishment 
to  which  I  was  subjected.  Is  it  strange,  then,  that  I  had 
no  respect  for  authority  personified  by  a  man  who,  hold- 
ing me  in  the  vilest  of  exiles,  apparently  countenanced  the 

i8i 


1 82  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

brutal  practices  of  men  dependent  upon  him  for  their  con- 
tinued employment?  I  refused  to  be  a  martyr.  Rebellion 
was  my  watchword.  The  only  difference  between  the 
doctor's  opinion  of  me  and  mine  of  him  was  that  he  could 
refuse  utterance  to  his  thoughts.  Yes  —  there  was  another 
difference.  Mine  could  be  expressed  only  in  words  — 
his  in  grim  acts. 

I  repeatedly  made  demands  for  those  privileges  to  which 
I  knew  I  was  entitled.  When  he  saw  fit  to  grant  them 
I  gave  him  perfunctory  thanks.  When  he  refused  —  as  he 
usually  did  —  I  at  once  poured  upon  his  head  the  vials 
of  my  wrath.  Patients  with  less  stamina  than  I  had  in- 
variably submit  with  meekness;  and  none  so  aroused  my 
sympathy  as  those  whose  submission  was  due  to  the  con- 
sciousness that  they  had  no  relatives  or  friends  to  support 
them  in  a  fight  for  their  rights.  These,  disheartened,  usually 
bear  their  burdens  with  a  fortitude  which  under  other  con- 
ditions would  be  sublime. 

On  behalf  of  these,  with  my  usual  piece  of  smuggled  lead 
pencil,  I  soon  began  to  indite  and  submit  to  the  officers  of 
the  institution  letters  in  which  I  described  the  cruel  prac- 
tices which  came  under  my  notice.  My  reports  were  per- 
functorily accepted  and  at  once  forgotten  or  ignored.  Yet 
these  letters,  so  far  as  they  related  to  overt  acts  witnessed, 
were  lucid  and  should  have  been  convincing.  Furthermore, 
my  allegations  were  frequently  corroborated  by  marks  on  the 
bodies  of  the  patients.  My  usual  custom  was  to  write  an 
account  of  each  assault  and  hand  it  to  the  doctor  in  authority. 
Frequently  I  would  submit  these  reports  to  the  attendants 
with  instructions  first  to  read  and  then  deliver  them  to  the 
superintendent  or  the  assistant  physician.  The  men  whose 
cruelty  I  thus  laid  bare  read  my  complaints  with  evident  but 
perverted  pleasure.     They  would  laugh  and  joke  about  my 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  183 

ineffectual  attempts  to  bring  about  their  discharge.  And 
their  derision  seemed  justified;  for  my  almost  daily  reports 
were  without  effect. 

My  very  independence  and  my  impulse  to  defend  others 
gave  promise  of  approaching  sanity.  Yet  it  was  because  of 
this  disturbing  audacity  that  I  so  long  failed  of  a  transfer 
to  a  better  ward.  One  day  I  would  be  on  the  friendliest 
terms  with  the  doctor,  the  next  day  I  would  upbraid  him 
for  some  denial  of  my  rights,  —  or,  as  frequently  happened, 
for  not  interposing  in  behalf  of  the  rights  of  others.  It  was 
after  one  of  these  wrangles  that  I  was  placed  in  a  cold 
cell  in  the  Bull  Pen  at  eleven  o'clock  one  morning.  StiU 
without  shoes  and  with  no  more  covering  than  underclothes, 
I  was  forced  to  stand,  sit,  or  lie  upon  a  bare  floor  as  hard 
and  cold  as  the  pavement  outside.  Not  until  sundown  was 
I  provided  even  with  a  drugget,  and  this  did  little  good,  for 
already  I  had  become  thoroughly  chilled.  In  consequence, 
I  contracted  a  severe  cold  which  added  greatly  to  my  discom- 
fort, and  might  have  led  to  serious  results  had  I  been  of  less 
sturdy  fiber. 

This  day  was  the  thirteenth  of  December  and  the  twenty- 
second  of  my  exile.  I  remember  it  distinctly  for  it  was  the 
seventy-seventh  birthday  of  my  father,  to  whom  I  wished 
to  write  a  congratulatory  letter.  This  had  been  my  custom 
for  years  when  absent  from  home  on  that  anniversary.  And 
well  do  I  remember  when,  and  under  what  conditions,  I 
asked  the  doctor  for  permission.  It  was  night.  I  was  flat  on 
my  drugget-bed.  My  cell  was  lighted  only  by  the  feeble  rays 
of  a  lantern  held  by  an  attendant  to  the  doctor  on  this  his 
regular  visit.  At  first  I  couched  my  request  in  polite  lan- 
guage. The  doctor  merely  refused  to  grant  it.  I  then  put 
forth  my  plea  in  a  way  calculated  to  arouse  sympathy.  He 
remained  unmoved.    I  then  pointed  out  that  he  was  defying 


1 84  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

the  law  of  the  State  which  provided  that  a  patient  should 
have  stationery  —  a  statute,  the  spirit  of  which  at  least 
meant  that  he  should  be  permitted  to  communicate  with  his 
conservator.^  But  my  arguments  were  of  no  avail.  The 
doctor  had  set  himself  up  as  despot,  and  despot  he  remained. 
It  was  now  three  weeks  since  I  had  been  permitted  to  write 
or  send  a  letter  to  any  relative  or  friend.  Why?  Because 
I  would  persist  in  telling  the  truth  about  my  treatment  and 
condition.  Naturally  the  management  did  not  desire  such 
information  to  be  spread.  Contrary  to  my  custom,  there- 
fore, I  made  my  final  demand  in  the  form  of  a  concession. 
I  promised  that  I  would  write  only  a  conventional  note  of 
congratulation,  making  no  mention  whatever  of  my  plight. 
It  was  a  fair  offer;  but  to  accept  it  would  have  been  an  im- 
plied admission  that  there  was  something  to  conceal,  and  for 
this,  if  for  no  other  reason,  it  was  refused. 

Such  treatment  was  not  only  unfair,  it  was  unsound 
from  a  scientific  point  of  view.  I  was  fighting  for  my  life 
and  my  reason;  and  the  doctor  apparently  was  putting 
other  obstacles  in  my  way  than  those  which  were  unavoid- 
able. Surely  I  was  actuated  by  a  sane  impulse  —  the  desire 
to  write  to  my  father  on  his  birthday.  And,  as  sanity  itself 
simply  consists  in  sane  impulses,  was  it  not  the  duty  of  that 
doctor,  rather  than  to  stifle  such  impulses  as  they  appeared, 
to  sustain  and  strengthen  them,  and,  if  possible,  encourage 
them  to  become  preponderant?  Instead,  day  after  day,  I 
was  repressed  in  a  manner  which  probably  would  have  driven 

1  See  General  Statutes  of  Connecticut  §  2764.  Patient  may  communi- 
cate WITH  FRIENDS  IN  WRITING.  All  persons  detained  as  insane  shall 
at  all  times  be  furnished  with  materials  for  communicating  under  seal 
with  any  proper  person  without  the  asylum,  and  such  communications 
shall  be  stamped  and  mailed  daily.  Should  the  patient  desire  it,  all 
rational  communications  shall  be  written  at  his  dictation  and  duly  mailed 
to  any  relative  or  person  named  by  the  patient. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  185 

many  a  sane  man  into  a  state  of  madness  and  violence.  Yet 
that  doctor,  forgetful  or  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  my  behavior 
was  the  direct  result  of  the  indignities  which  he  and  his  under- 
lings were  continually  heaping  upon  me,  would  frequently 
exhort  me  to  play  the  gentleman.  Are  mild  manners  and 
sweet  submission  usually  the  product  of  such  treatment? 
Deprived  of  my  clothes,  of  sufficient  food,  of  warmth,  of  all 
sane  companionship,  of  my  liberty  and  even  of  those  residu- 
ary rights  which  belong  to  a  madman,  I  told  the  doctors  that 
so  long  as  they  should  continue  to  treat  me  as  the  vilest  of 
criminals,  I  should  do  my  best  to  complete  the  illusion. 

The  burden  of  proving  my  sanity  was  placed  upon  me.  I 
was  told  that  so  soon  as  I  became  polite  and  meek  and  lowly 
I  should  find  myself  in  possession  of  my  clothes  and  of  cer- 
tain privileges.  In  every  instance  I  must  earn  my  reward 
before  being  entrusted  with  it.  If  this  principle  had  been 
applied  in  a  rational  way,  if,  for  instance,  instead  of  demand- 
ing of  me  all  the  negative  virtues  in  the  catalogue  of  spineless 
saints,  the  doctor  had  given  me  my  clothes  on  the  condition 
that  they  would  be  taken  from  me  again  if  I  so  much  as  re- 
moved a  button,  —  such  a  course  would  have  been  produc- 
tive of  good  results.  Thus  I  might  have  had  my  clothes 
three  weeks  earlier  than  I  did,  and  so  been  spared  much  suf- 
fering from  the  cold. 

I  clamored  daily  for  a  lead  pencil;  but  for  seven  weeks 
no  doctor,  attendant,  or  other  attache  gave  me  one.  Now  a 
lead  pencil  represents  the  margin  of  happiness  for  hundreds  of 
the  insane,  while  a  plug  of  tobacco  represents  the  margin  of 
happiness  for  thousands  of  others.  To  be  sure,  by  reason 
of  my  somewhat  exceptional  persistence  and  ingenuity,  I 
managed  to  be  always  in  possession  of  some  substitute  for 
a  pencil,  surreptitiously  obtained,  —  a  fact  which  no  doubt 
had  something  to  do  with  the  doctor's  indifference  to  my 


l86  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

request.  But  my  inability  to  secure  a  pencil  in  a  legitimate 
way  was  a  needless  source  of  annoyance  to  me,  and  many 
of  my  verbal  indiscretions  were  directly  inspired  by  the 
doctor's  continued  refusal  to  give  me  what  I  well  knew 
belonged  to  me  by  right.  Hospital  officials  will  often 
justify  such  a  petty  deprivation  because  of  an  alleged 
proneness  on  the  part  of  the  patients  to  scribble  on  the 
walls.  But  only  in  exceptional  cases  does  this  mischievous 
tendency  exist.  During  my  confinement  I  saw  little  such 
vandalism,  and  most  of  that  was  caused  by  a  dearth  of  paper 
on  which  to  write;  and  I  have  since  found  that  in  hospitals 
where  privileges  of  this  sort  are  freely  and  promptly  granted, 
there  is  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  patients  to  show  their 
appreciation  by  respecting  the  wishes  of  their  benefactors. 
A  doctor  who  has  gained  the  good-will  of  a  patient  can,  by 
speaking  kindly  to  him,  deter  him  from  worse  transgressions 
than  scribbling  on  the  walls.  But  let  us  admit  that  a  few 
patients  will  transgress.  Must  the  many  suffer  because  of 
the  irresponsibility  of  the  few?  And  what  real  harm  is 
done  by  the  few?  Surely  the  instinct  to  so  mark  a  bare 
surface  is  bom  of  sanity  itself.  Why  else  do  under- 
graduates sally  forth  every  now  and  then  with  a  pot  of 
paint  —  to  earn  a  fleeting  immortality  among  barbarians 
of  their  own  ilk?  Inasmuch  as  Nature  herself  is  everlast- 
ingly carving  the  earth's  surface,  it  is  not  strange  that  man, 
sane  and  insane,  attempts  in  his  feeble  way  to  imitate  her. 
It  was  an  assistant  physician,  other  than  the  one  regularly 
in  charge  of  my  case,  who  at  last  relented  and  presented  me 
with  a  good  lead  pencil.  By  so  doing  he  placed  himself 
high  on  my  list  of  benefactors ;  for  that  stick  of  wood  — 
magnified  by  my  lively  appreciation  —  became  as  the  very 
axis  of  the  earth. 


XXIII 

It  was  a  few  days  before  Christmas  that  my  most  galling 
deprivation  was  at  last  removed.  That  is,  my  clothes  were 
restored.  These  I  treated  with  great  respect.  Not  so  much 
as  a  thread  did  I  destroy.  Clothes  have  a  sobering  and  civil- 
izing effect,  and  from  the  very  moment  I  was  again  provided 
with  presentable  outer  garments  my  conduct  rapidly  im- 
proved. One  of  the  doctors  with  whom  I  had  been  on  such 
variable  terms  of  friendship  and  enmity  even  took  me  for  a 
sleigh-ride.  With  this  improvement  came  other  privileges 
or,  rather,  the  granting  of  my  rights.  Late  in  December  I 
was  permitted  to  write  and  send  letters  to  my  conservator. 
Now  that  I  was  no  longer  being  treated  cruelly  the  doctor 
in  charge  was  willing  that  I  should  communicate  directly 
with  my  brother.  Though  some  of  my  blood-curdling 
letters  were  confiscated,  a  few,  detailing  my  experiences,  were 
forwarded.  The  account  of  my  sufferings  naturally  dis- 
tressed my  conservator,  but,  as  he  said  when  he  next 
visited  me:  "What  could  I  have  done  to  help  you?  If  the 
men  in  this  State  whose  business  it  is  to  care  for  the  insane 
cannot  manage  you,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do." 
True,  he  could  have  done  little  or  nothing,  for  he  did  not 
then  know  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  baffling  game  into  which 
the  ties  of  blood  had  drawn  him. 

About  the  middle  of  January  the  doctor  in  charge  of  my 
case  went  for  a  two  week's  vacation.  During  his  absence 
another  member  of  the  staff  took  charge  of  the  violent  ward. 
A  man  of  wider  experience  and  more  liberal  ideas  than  his 

187 


1 88  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

predecessor,  he  at  once  granted  me  several  real  privileges. 
One  day  he  permitted  me  to  pay  a  brief  visit  to  the  best  ward 
—  the  ward  from  which  I  had  been  transferred  two  months 

\  earlier.    I  thus  was  able  again  to  mingle  with  fairly  sane 
jmen,  and  though  I   enjoyed   this  privilege   upon   but   one 

/  occasion,  and  then  only  for  a    few  hours,  the   knowledge 

I  that  I  could  have    such  privileges  for  the   asking   was  a 

\  source  of  intense  satisfaction. 

Altogether  the  last  six  weeks  of  the  fourteen  during  which 
I  was  confined  in  the  violent  ward  were  comfortable  and  rel- 
atively happy.  I  was  no  longer  subjected  to  physical  abuse, 
though  this  exemption  was  largely  due  to  my  own  skill  in 
avoiding  trouble.  I  was  no  longer  cold  and  hungry.  I  was 
allowed  a  fair  amount  of  out- door  exercise  which,  after  my 
close  confinement,  proved  to  be  a  delightful  sort  of  shock. 
But,  above  all,  I  was  again  given  an  adequate  supply  of 
writing  and  drawing  materials,  which  became  as  tinder  under 
the  focused  rays  of  my  artistic  eagerness.  My  mechanical 
investigations  were  gradually  set  aside  and  art  and  literature 
again  held  sway.  Except  when  out  of  doors  taking  my 
apportioned  exercise,  I  remained  in  my  room  reading,  writing 
or  drawing.  This  room  of  mine  soon  became  a  Mecca  for 
the  most  irrepressible  and  loquacious  characters  in  the  ward. 
These  self- elected  companions  at  first  interfered  with  my 
work.  But  I  soon  schooled  myself  to  shut  my  ears  to  their 
incoherent  prattle.  Occasionally,  some  uninvited  visitor 
would  become  obstreperous  —  perhaps  because  of  my  lordly 
order  that  he  leave  the  room.  At  such  times,  however,  I 
tested  my  theory  that  insane  patients  in  anger  can  be  con- 
trolled by  tact.  The  result  was  that  I  invariably  induced 
them  to  obey.  Often  did  they  threaten  to  throttle  me;  but 
I  ignored  the  threats,  and  they  were  never  carried  out.  Nor 
was  I  afraid  that  they  would  be.    Had  I  been  a  typical 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  189 

attendant,  I  should  have  accepted  them  as  challenges,  with 
the  usual  brutal  consequences. 

The  drawings  I  produced  at  this  time  were  crude.  For 
the  most  part  they  consisted  of  copies  of  illustrations  which 
I  had  cut  from  magazines  that  had  miraculously  found  their 
way  into  the  violent  ward.  The  heads  of  men  and  women 
interested  me  most,  for  I  had  decided  to  take  up  por- 
traiture. At  first  I  was  content  to  draw  in  black  and 
white,  but  I  soon  procured  some  colors  and  from  that  time 
on  I  devoted  my  attention  to  mastering  pastel.  With  it  I 
evolved  a  method  which  produced  an  unusual  but  not  an 
unpleasing  effect.  I  doubt  if  a  graduate  of  a  recognized 
School  of  Art  would  dare  to  discover  the  secret  of  my 
method.  Therefore  I  shall  give  up  the  key  to  my  mystery  so 
that  he  who  runs  may  take  or  leave  it.  On  paper  with  a 
rough  surface  (such  as  draughtsmen  commonly  use)  first 
draw  an  outline,  using  a  hard  pencil.  Then  rub  in  pastel 
of  the  desired  color.  With  the  tip  of  the  finger  this 
can  be  properly  distributed;  and  the  slight  indentations 
on  the  surface  of  the  paper,  caused  by  the  hard  pencil, 
will  immediately  appear  as  light  lines.  These  lines  pro- 
duce a  peculiar  and  striking  effect.  Though  this  method 
would  be  of  no  value  in  many  drawings,  in  a  drawing 
in  which  there  is  a  wealth  of  hair  to  be  represented  it 
is  very  serviceable.  With  my  compliments,  this  method 
(so  far  as  I  know,  my  own)  I  bequeath  to  posterity,  and 
to  such  living  artists  as  dare  to  risk  their  reputation  by 
adopting  it. 

In  the  world  of  letters  I  had  made  little  progress.  My 
compositions  were  for  the  most  part  epistles  —  addressed  to 
relatives  and  friends,  and  to  those  in  authority  at  the  hospital. 
Frequently  the  letters  addressed  to  the  doctors  were  sent 
in  sets  of  three  —  this  to  save  time,  for  I  was  very  busy.   The 


190 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


first  letter  of  such  a  series  would  contain  my  request,  couched 
in  friendly  and  polite  terms.  To  this  I  would  add  a  post- 
script, worded  about  as  follows:  "If,  after  reading  this  letter, 
you  feel  inclined  to  refuse  my  request,  please  read  letter  num- 
ber two."  Letter  number  two  would  be  severely  formal  — 
a  business-like  repetition  of  the  request  made  in  letter  num- 
ber one.  Again  a  postscript  would  advise  the  reader  to 
consult  letter  number  three,  if  the  reading  of  number  two 
had  failed  to  move  him.  Letter  nimiber  three  was  invariably 
a  brief  philippic  in  which  I  would  consign  the  unacconmio- 
dating  doctor  to  oblivion. 

In  this  way  I  expended  part  of  my  prodigious  supply  of 
feeling.  But  I  had  also  another  way  of  reducing  my  crea- 
tive pressure.  Occasionally,  from  sheer  excess  of  emotion, 
I  would  burst  into  verse  —  of  a  quality  not  to  be  doubted. 
Of  that  quality  the  reader  shall  judge,  for  I  am  going  to 
quote  a  "creation"  written  under  circumstances  which,  to 
say  the  least,  were  adverse.  Before  writing  these  lines  I 
had  never  attempted  verse  in  my  life  —  barring  intentionally 
inane  doggerel.  And,  as  I  now  judge  these  lines,  it  is  prob- 
ably true  that  even  yet  I  have  never  written  a  poem.  Never- 
theless, my  involuntary,  almost  automatic  outburst  is  at 
least  suggestive  of  the  fervor  that  was  in  me.  These  four- 
teen lines  were  written  within  thirty  minutes  of  the  time  I 
first  conceived  the  idea;  and  I  present  them  substantially 
as  they  first  took  form.  From  a  psychological  standpoint, 
at  least,  they  are  not  without  interest. 

LIGHT 

Man's  darkest  hour  is  the  hour  before  he's  bom, 

Another  is  the  hour  just  before  the  Dawn; 

From  Darkness  unto  Life  and  Light  he  leaps, 

To  Life  but  once,  —  to  Light  as  oft  as  God  wills  he  should. 

'Tis  God's  own  secret,  why 

Some  live  long,  and  others  early  die; 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  191 

For  Life  depends  on  Light,  and  Light  on  God, 
Who  hath  given  to  Man  the  perfect  knowledge 
That  Grim  Despair  and  Sorrow  end  in  Light 
And  Life  everlasting,  in  realms 
Where  darkest  Darkness  becomes  Light; 
But  not  the  Light  Man  knows, 
Which  only  is  Light 
Because  God  told  Man  so. 

These  verses,  which  breathe  religion,  were  written  in  an 
atmosphere  where  rehgion  was  almost  extinct.  With  the 
cm-ses  of  madmen  ringing  in  my  ears,  some  subconscious 
part  of  me  forced  me  to  write  at  its  dictation.  I  was  far 
from  being  in  a  pious  frame  of  mind  myself,  and  the  quality 
of  my  thought  surprised  me  then  —  as  it  does  now.  Per- 
haps for  a  moment  some  ancestor  (I  have  two  who  went 
as  missionaries  to  the  Sandwich  Islands  early  in  the  last  cen- 
tury) controlled  my  thoughts.  At  any  rate  I  like  to  think 
so,  for  I  should  object  to  being  held  entirely  responsible  for 
a  poem  the  technical  imperfections  of  which  are  scarcely 
atoned  for  by  the  elevation  of  the  theme. 


Though  I  respected  my  clothes,  I  did  not  at  once  cease  to 
tear  such  material  as  would  serve  me  in  my  scientific  inves- 
tigations. Gravity  being  conquered,  it  was  inevitable  that 
I  should  devote  some  of  my  time  to  the  invention  of  a  flying- 
machine.  This  was  soon  perfected  —  in  my  mind;  and  all 
I  needed,  that  I  might  test  the  device,  was  my  liberty.  As 
usual  I  was  unable  to  explain  how  I  should  produce  the  re- 
sult which  I  so  confidently  foretold.  But  I  was  secure  in 
the  belief  that  I  should,  ere  long,  fly  to  St.  Louis  and  claim 
and  receive  the  one  hundred  thousand  dollar  reward  offered 
by  the  Commission  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Exposition  for 
the  most  efficient  airship  there  to  be  exhibited.     The  mo- 


192  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

ment  that  thought  winged  its  way  through  my  mind,  I  had 
not  only  a  flying-machine,  but  a  fortune  in  the  bank.  Being 
where  I  could  not  dissipate  my  riches  I  became  a  lavish  verbal 
spender.  I  was  in  a  mood  to  buy  anything,  and  I  whiled 
away  many  an  hour  planning  what  I  should  do  with  my 
fortune.  The  St.  Louis  prize  was  a  paltry  trifle.  I  reasoned 
(if  my  magnificent  mental  processes  may  be  dignified  as 
reasoning)  that  the  man  who  could  harness  gravity  had  at 
his  beck  and  call  the  world  and  all  that  therein  is.  This 
sudden  accession  of  wealth  made  my  vast  humanitarian 
projects  seem  only  the  more  feasible.  What  could  be  more 
delightful,  thought  I,  than  the  furnishing  and  financing  of 
ideas  of  a  magnitude  such  as  would  stagger  humanity.  My 
condition  was  one  of  ecstatic  suspense.  Give  me  my  liberty 
and  I  would  show  a  sleepy  old  world  what  could  be  done  to 
improve  conditions,  not  only  among  the  insane,  but  along 
every  line  of  beneficent  endeavor. 

The  city  of  my  birth  was  to  be  made  a  garden-spot.  All 
defiling,  smoke-begriming  factories  were  to  be  banished  to 
an  innocuous  distance.  Churches  were  to  give  way  to  cathe- 
drals; the  city  itself  was  to  become  a  paradise  of  mansions. 
Yale  University  was  to  be  transformed  into  the  most  mag- 
nificent —  yet  efficient  —  seat  of  learning  in  the  world.  For 
once,  college  professors  were  to  be  paid  adequate  salaries, 
and  alluring  provision  for  their  declining  years  was  to  be 
made.  New  Haven  should  become  a  very  hot-bed  of  cul- 
ture. Art  galleries,  libraries,  museums,  and  theaters  of  a 
dream-like  splendor  were  to  rise  whenever  and  wherever  I 
should  will.  Why  absurd?  Was  it  not  I  who  would 
defray  the  cost?  The  famous  buildings  of  the  Old  World 
were  to  be  reproduced,  if,  indeed,  the  originals  could  not  be 
purchased,  brought  to  this  country,  and  re-erected.  Not 
far  from  New  Haven  there  is  a  sandy  plain,  once  the  bed 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  193 

of  the  Connecticut  River,  but  now  a  kind  of  miniature 
desert.  I  often  smile  as  I  pass  it  on  the  train;  for  it  was 
here,  for  the  edification  of  those  who  might  never  be  able  to 
visit  the  Valley  of  the  Nile,  that  I  planned  to  erect  a  pyramid 
that  should  out- Cheops  the  original.  My  harnessed  grav- 
ity, I  believed,  would  not  only  enable  me  to  overcome 
existing  mechanical  difficulties,  but  it  would  make  the 
quarrying  of  immense  monoliths  as  easy  as  the  slicing 
of  bread. 

After  aU,  delusions  of  grandeur  are  the  most  entertaining 
of  toys.  The  assortment  which  my  imagination  provided 
was  a  comprehensive  one.  I  had  tossed  aside  the  blocks 
of  childhood  days.  Instead  of  laboriously  piling  small 
squares  of  wood  one  upon  another,  in  an  endeavor  to 
build  the  tiny  semblance  of  a  house,  I  now,  in  this  second 
childhood  of  mine,  projected  against  thin  air  phantom 
edifices,  planned  and  completed  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 
To  be  sure  such  houses  of  cards  almost  immediately  su- 
perseded each  other,  but  the  vanishing  of  one  could  not 
disturb  a  mind  which  had  ever  another  interesting 
bauble  to  take  its  place.  And  therein  lies  part  of  the  secret 
of  the  happiness  peculiar  to  that  stage  of  elation  which  is 
distinguished  by  delusions  of  grandeur,  —  always  provided 
the  afflicted  one  be  not  subjected  to  privation  and  abuse. 
The  sane  man  who  can  prove  that  he  is  rich  in  material 
wealth  is  not  nearly  so  happy  as  his  unfortunate  brother 
whose  delusions  trick  him  into  believing  himself  a  modern 
Croesus.  A  wealth  of  Midas-like  delusions  is  no  burden. 
Such  a  fortune,  though  a  misfortune  in  itself,  bathes  the 
world  in  a  golden  glow.  No  clouds  obscure  the  vision. 
Optimism  reigns  supreme.  "Failure"  and  "impossible"  are 
as  words  from  an  unknown  tongue.  And  the  unique  satis- 
faction about  a  fortune  of  this  fugitive  type  is  that  its  loss 
14 


194  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

occasions  no  regret.  One  by  one  the  phantom  ships  of  treas- 
ure sail  away  for  parts  unknown;  untU  when  the  last 
has  become  but  a  speck  on  the  mental  horizon,  the  observer 
makes  the  happy  discovery  that  his  pirate  fleet  has  left 
behind  it  a  priceless  wake  of  Reason! 


XXIV 

Early  in  March,  1903,  having  lived  in  a  "violent 
ward"  for  nearly  four  months,  I  was  transferred  to  another 
—  a  ward  quite  as  orderly  as  the  best  in  the  institution, 
though  less  attractively  furnished.  Here  also  I  had  a  room 
to  myself:  in  this  instance,  however,  the  room  had  not  only 
a  bed,  but  a  chair  and  a  wardrobe.  With  this  elaborate 
equipment  I  was  soon  able  to  convert  my  room  into  a  ver- 
itable studio.  Whereas  in  the  violent  ward  it  had  been 
necessary  for  me  to  hide  my  writing  and  drawing  materials 
to  prevent  their  loss,  in  my  new  abode  I  was  able  to  conduct 
my  literary  and  artistic  operations  without  the  annoyances 
which  had  been  inevitable  during  the  preceding  months. 

Soon  after  my  transfer  to  this  ward  I  was  permitted  to  go 
out  of  doors  and  walk  to  the  business  section  of  the  city  —  two 
miles  distant.  But  on  these  walks  I  was  always  accom- 
panied by  an  attendant.  To  one  who  has  never  surrendered 
any  part  of  his  liberty  such  surveillance  would  no  doubt  seem 
irksome;  yet,  to  me,  after  being  so  closely  confined,  the 
ever-present  attendant  seemed  a  companion  rather  than  a 
guard.  These  excursions  into  the  sane  and  free  world  were 
not  only  a  great  pleasure,  they  were  almost  a  tonic.  To 
rub  elbows  with  normal  men  tends  to  restore  the  mental 
poise  of  one  whose  recovery  is  imminent.  The  casual  passer- 
by, as  a  rule,  does  not  distinguish  patient  from  attendant, 
if,  indeed,  the  identity  of  either  is  suspected.  And  the 
knowledge  of  this  fact  gives  the  patient  a  feeling  of  security 
which  hastens  a  return  of  that  self-confidence  so  essential 

195 


196  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

to  the  success  of  one  about  to  re-enter  a  world  from  which 
he  has  long  been  cut  off. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  those  in  authority  at  a  state  hos- 
pital are  unable  to  send  many  patients  on  such  little  excur- 
sions as  I  have  just  mentioned.  I  know  that  the  doctors  would 
be  glad  to  grant  such  privileges  more  freely  if  a  sufficient 
number  of  attendants  were  available  for  the  purpose.  Few 
institutions  are  provided  with  an  adequate  force  of  attend- 
ants. Yet  the  States  could  well  afford  to  employ  men 
and  women  for  no  other  purpose  than  that  of  acting  as 
escort  and  guard  for  those  patients  whose  recovery  is  only  a 
question  of  time.  Such  treatment  would  surely  shorten 
the  period  of  convalescence,  and  the  earher  discharge  of  the 
patient  would  offset  the  increased  cost  of  treatment;  for 
"it  is  an  accepted  postulate  by  speciahsts  who  have 
examined  the  question  that  every  recovery  from  mental 
disease,  no  matter  what  the  cost  of  obtaining  it,  is  a  saving 
to  the  State."  ^  In  every  community,  I  believe,  there  are  men 
and  women  who  would  be  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  perform 
such  service  —  for  a  few  hours  each  day.  One  of  these  per- 
sons could  be  called  in  whenever  a  regular  attendant  could 
not  be  spared  for  the  purpose.  Especially  would  this  scheme 
prove  feasible  in  those  institutions  (and  there  are  many 
such)  situated  near  a  college  or  university.  The  students 
would  thus  be  able  to  make  appreciable  additions  to  their 
income  during  their  term  of  study  and,  far  above  the 
financial  gains,  they  would  develop  a  richness  of  char- 
acter which  must  come  to  him  who  helps  to  lift  a  burden 
from  the  sorely  afflicted. 

My  first  trips  to  the  city  were  made  primarily  for  the  pur- 
pose of  supplying  myself  with  writing  and  drawing  materials. 

*See  Dr.  J.  Montgomery  Mosher's  Fourth  Annual  Report  of  Pavilion 
F,  Department  for  Mental  Diseases  at  Albany  Hospital  (Albany,  N.  Y.). 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  197 

While  enjoying  these  welcome  tastes  of  liberty,  on  more  than 
one  occasion  I  surreptitiously  mailed  certain  letters  which 
I  did  not  dare  entrust  to  the  doctor.  Under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances such  an  act  on  the  part  of  one  enjoying  a  special 
privilege  would  be  dishonorable.  But  the  circumstances 
that  then  obtained  were  not  ordinary.  I  was  simply  pro- 
tecting myself  against  what  I  believed  to  be  unjust  and 
illegal  confiscation  of  letters. 

I  therefore  need  not  dilate  on  the  reasons  which  made 
it  necessary  for  me  to  smuggle,  as  it  were,  to  the  Governor 
of  the  State  of  which  I  was  a  ward,  a  letter  of  complaint  and 
instruction.  This  letter  was  written  shortly  after  my  trans- 
fer from  the  violent  ward.  The  abuses  of  that  ward  were 
still  fresh  in  my  mind,  and  the  memory  of  distressing 
scenes  was  kept  vivid  by  reports  reaching  me  from  friends 
who  were  still  confined  there.  These  private  detectives  of 
mine  I  talked  with  at  the  evening  entertainments,  or  at 
church.  From  them  I  learned  that  brutality  had  become 
more  common,  if  anything,  since  I  had  left  the  ward.  Real- 
izing that  my  crusade  against  the  physical  abuse  of  patients 
thus  far  had  proved  of  no  effect,  I  determined  to  go  over 
the  heads  of  the  doctors  and  appeal  to  the  ex-officio  head 
of  the  institution,  the  Governor  of  the  State. 

On  March  12  th,  1903,  I  wrote  a  letter  which  so 
disturbed  the  Governor  that  he  immediately  set  about  an 
informal  investigation  of  some  of  my  charges.  Despite  its 
prolixity,  its  unconventional  form  and  what,  under  other  cir- 
cumstances, would  be  stigmatized  as  almost  diabolic  impu- 
dence and  familiarity,  my  letter,  as  he  said  months  later 
when  I  conferred  with  him,  "rang  true."  The  writing  of  it 
was  an  easy  matter;  in  fact,  so  easy,  because  of  the  pressure 
of  truth  under  which  I  was  laboring  at  the  time,  that  it  em- 
bodied a  compelling  spontaneity. 


198  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

The  mailing  of  it  was  not  so  easy.  I  knew  that  the  only 
sure  way  of  getting  my  thoughts  before  the  Governor  was 
to  do  my  own  mailing.  Naturally  no  doctor  could  be  trusted 
to  send  an  indictment  against  himself  and  his  colleagues  to 
the  one  man  in  the  State  who  had  the  power  to  institute  such 
an  investigation  as  might  make  it  necessary  for  all  to  seek 
employment  elsewhere.  In  my  frame  of  mind,  to  wish  to 
mail  my  letter  was  to  know  how  to  accomplish  the  wish. 
The  letter  was  in  reality  a  booklet.  I  had  thoughtfully  used 
waterproof  India  drawing  ink  in  writing  it,  in  order,  per- 
haps, that  a  remote  posterity  might  not  be  deprived  of  the 
document.  The  booklet  consisted  of  thirty-two,  eight-by- 
ten-inch  pages  of  heavy  white  drawing  paper.  These  I  had 
bound  together  by  sewing.  In  planning  the  form  of  my 
letter  I  had  forgotten  to  consider  the  slot  of  a  letter-box  of 
average  size.  Therefore  I  had  to  hit  upon  some  peculiar 
method  of  getting  my  letter  into  the  custody  of  the  gov- 
ernment. My  expedient  was  simple.  There  was  in  the 
town  a  certain  bookstore  where  I  traded.  At  my  request 
the  doctor  gave  me  permission  to  go  to  that  store  for  supplies. 
I  was  of  course  accompanied  by  an  attendant,  who  little 
suspected  what  was  under  my  vest.  To  conceal  and  carry 
my  letter  in  that  place  had  been  easy;  but  to  get  rid  of  it 
after  reaching  the  bookstore  was  another  matter.  Watch- 
ing my  opportunity,  I  slipped  the  missive  between  the 
leaves  of  a  copy  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post.  This  I  did, 
believing  that  some  purchaser  would  soon  discover  the  letter 
and  mail  it.  In  fact,  so  fearful  was  I  of  detection,  that,  to 
guard  against  its  discovery  before  I  should  be  safely  away 
from  the  shop,  I  placed  it  nearer  the  bottom  than  the  top 
of  the  pile. 

That  the  letter  which  I  thus  successfully  started  on  its 
errand  finally  reached  the  Governor  was  not  surprising.   On 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  199 

the   back  of    the  wrapper  I  had  endorsed   the  following 
words : 

"Mr.  Postmaster:  This  package  is  unsealed.  Neverthe- 
less it  is  first-class  matter.  Everything  I  write  is  necessa- 
rily first  class.  I  have  affixed  two  two-cent  stamps.  If  extra 
postage  is  needed  you  will  do  the  Governor  a  favor  if  you 
will  put  the  extra  postage  on.  Or  affix  "due"  stamps,  and 
let  the  Governor  pay  his  own  bills,  as  he  can  well  afford  to. 
If  you  want  to  know  who  I  am,  just  ask  his  Excellency,  and 
oblige,  Yours  truly, 

?" 

Flanking  this  notice,  I  had  arrayed  other  forceful  senti- 
ments, as  follows  —  taken  from  statutes  which  I  had  framed 
for  the  occasion: 

"Any  person  finding  letter  or  package  —  duly  stamped 
and  addressed  —  must  mail  same  as  said  letter  or  package 
is  really  in  hands  of  the  Government  the  moment  the  stamp 
is  affixed." 

And  again, 

"Failure  to  comply  with  Federal  Statute  which  forbids 
any  one  except  addressee  to  open  a  letter  —  renders  one 
liable  to  imprisonment  in  State  Prison," 

One  of  the  owners  of  the  store  in  which  I  left  this  letter 
found  and  mailed  it.  From  him,  I  afterwards  learned  that 
my  unique  instructions  had  piqued  his  curiosity,  as  well  as 
compelled  my  wished-for  action.  Assuming  that  the  reader's 
curiosity  may  likewise  have  been  piqued,  I  shall  quote  cer- 
tain passages  from  this  four  thousand  word  epistle  of  pro- 
test. The  opening  sentence  read  as  follows :  "  If  you  have  had 
the  courage  to  read  the  above  (referring  to  an  unconventional 
heading)  I  hope  you  will  read  on  to  the  end  of  this  epistle 
—  thereby  displaying  real  Christian  fortitude  and  learning  a 
few  facts  which  I  think  should  be  brought  to  your  attention." 


200  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

I  then  introduced  myself,  touching  upon  my  ancestry,  and 
proceeded  as  follows:  "I  take  pleasure  in  informing  you 
that  I  am  in  the  Crazy  Business  and  am  holding  my  job 
down  with  ease  and  a  fair  degree  of  grace.  Being  in  the 
Crazy  Business,  I  understand  certain  phases  of  the  business 
about  which  you  know  nothing."  (Apparently  this  was 
meant  to  imply  that  the  Governor  himself  was  not  "crazy.") 
"You  as  Governor  are  at  present  'head  devil'  in  this  'hell,' 
though  I  know  you  are  unconsciously  acting  as  'His 
Majesty's'  ist  Lieutenant." 

I  then  launched  into  my  arraignment  of  the  treatment  of 
the  insane.  The  method,  I  declared,  was  "wrong  from 
start  to  finish.  The  abuses  existing  here  exist  in  every 
other  institution  of  the  kind  in  the  country.  They  are  all 
alike  —  though  some  of  them  are  of  course  worse  than  others. 
Hell  is  hell  the  world  over,  and  I  might  also  add  that  hell 
is  only  a  great  big  bunch  of  disagreeable  details  anyway. 
That's  all  an  Insane  Asylum  is.  If  you  don't  believe  it, 
just  go  crazy  and  take  up  your  abode  here.  In  writing  this 
letter  I  am  laboring  under  no  mental  excitement.  I  am  no 
longer  subjected  to  the  abuses  about  which  I  complain.  I 
am  well  and  happy.  In  fact  I  never  was  so  happy  as  I  am 
now.  Whether  I  am  in  perfect  mental  health  or  not,  I  shall 
leave  for  you  to  decide.  If  I  am  insane  to-day  I  hope  I  may 
never  recover  my  Reason." 

My  arraig^ment  began  with  the  private  institution  where 
I   had    been   strait-jacketed.     I  referred  to  my  oppressor 

as  "Dr. M.D.  (Mentally  Deranged)."     Then  followed 

an  account  of  my  strait- jacket  experience;  then  an  account 
of  abuses  at  the  State  Hospital.  I  described  in  detail  the 
most  brutal  assault  that  fell  to  my  lot.  In  simiming  up  I 
said,  "The  attendants  claimed  next  day  that  I  had  called 
them  certain  names.     Maybe  I  did  —  though  I  don't  be- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  201 

lieve  I  did  at  all.  What  of  it?  This  is  no  young  ladies' 
boarding  school.  Should  a  man  be  nearly  killed  because  he 
swears  at  attendants  who  swear  like  pirates?  I  have  seen 
at  least  fifteen  men,  many  of  them  mental  and  physical 
wrecks,  assaulted  just  as  brutally  as  I  was,  and  usually  with- 
out a  cause.  I  know  that  men's  lives  have  been  shortened 
by  these  brutal  assaults.  And  that  is  only  a  polite  way  of 
saying  that  murder  has  been  committed  here."  Turning 
next  to  the  matter  of  the  women's  wards  I  said:  "A  patient 
in  this  ward,  —  a  man  in  his  right  mind,  who  leaves  here  on 
Tuesday  next  —  told  me  that  a  woman  patient  told  him  that 
she  had  seen  many  a  helpless  woman  dragged  along  the  floor 
by  her  hair,  and  had  also  seen  them  choked  by  attendants 
who  used  a  wet  towel  as  a  sort  of  garrote.^  I  have  been 
through  the  mill  and  believe  every  word  of  the  abuse.  You 
will  perhaps  doubt  it,  as  it  seems  impossible.  Bear  in  mind, 
though,  that  everything  bad  and  disagreeable  is  possible  in 
an  Insane  Asylum." 

I  must  pause  to  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the  degree 
of  fair-mindedness  displayed  in  the  foregoing.  Facts  I 
stated  as  facts,  but  I  was  wise  enough  to  qualify  a  state- 
ment incapable  of  proof.  An  extravagant  imagination  does 
not  necessarily  supersede  and  suspend  judgment. 

When  I  came  to  the  matter  of  the  "Bull  Pen"  I  wasted 
no  words:  "The  Bull  Pen,"  I  wrote,  "is  a  pocket  edition  of 
the  New  York  Stock  Exchange  during  a  panic." 

I  next  pointed  out  the  difficulties  a  patient  must  over- 
come in  mailing  letters:  "It  is  impossible  for  any  one  to 
send  a  letter  to  you  via  the  office.    The  letter  would  be  con- 

1  According  to  the  testimony  given  before  the  Congressional  Committee 
which,  in  the  early  summer  of  1906,  investigated  the  Government  Hospital 
for  the  Insane  at  Washington,  D.  C,  untrained  attendants  seem  prone  to 
resort  to  the  use  of  a  wet  towel  as  a  sort  of  garrote. 


202  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

signed  to  the  waste-basket  —  unless  it  was  a  particularly 
crazy  letter  —  in  which  case  it  might  reach  you,  as  you  would 
then  pay  no  attention  to  it.  But  a  sane  letter,  and  a  true 
letter,  telling  about  the  abuses  which  exist  here  would  stand 
no  show  of  being  mailed.  The  way  in  which  mail  is  tam- 
pered with  by  the  medical  staff  is  contemptible." 

I  then  described  my  stratagem  in  mailing  my  letter  to  the 
Governor.  Discovering  that  I  had  left  a  page  of  my  episto- 
lary booklet  blank,  I  drew  upon  it  a  copy  of  Rembrandt's 
Anatomy  Lesson,  and  under  it  wrote:  "This  page  was 
skipped  by  mistake.  Had  to  fight  fifty-three  days  to  get 
writing-paper  and  I  hate  to  waste  any  space  —  hence  the 
masterpiece,  —  drawn  in  five  minutes.  Never  drew  a  line 
till  September  26  (last)  and  never  took  lessons  in  my  life. 
I  think  you  will  readily  believe  my  statement."  I  ask  the 
reader  to  notice  here  the  humorous  insight  into  my  artistic 
limitations  which  I  displayed,  despite  my  delusional  state 
of  mind.  Continuing  in  the  same  half-deluded,  half-banter- 
ing vein,  I  said:  "I  intend  to  immortalize  all  members  of 
medical  staff  of  State  Hospital  for  Insane  —  when  I  illus- 
trate my  Inferno,  which,  when  written,  will  make  Dante's 
Divine  Comedy  look  like  a  French  Farce." 

I  then  outlined  my  plans  for  reform:  "Whether  my  sug- 
gestions meet  with  approval  or  not,"  I  wrote,  "will  not  affect 
the  result  —  though  opposition  on  your  part  would  perhaps 
delay  reforms.  I  have  decided  to  devote  the  next  few  years 
of  my  life  to  correcting  abuses  now  in  existence  in  every 
asylum  in  this  country.  I  know  how  these  abuses  can  be 
corrected  and  I  intend  —  later  on,  when  I  understand  the 
subject  better  —  to  draw  up  a  Bill  of  Rights  for  the  Insane. 
Every  State  in  the  Union  will  pass  it,  because  it  will  be 
founded  on  the  Golden  Rule.  I  am  desirous  of  having  the 
co-operation  of  the  Governor  of  Connecticut,  but  if  my  plans 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


203 


do  not  appeal  to  him  I  shall  deal  directly  with  his  only  supe- 
rior, the  President  of  the  United  States.  When  Theodore 
Roosevelt  hears  my  story  his  blood  will  boil.  I  would  write 
to  him  now,  but  I  am  afraid  he  would  jump  in  and  correct 
abuses  too  quickly.  And  by  doing  it  too  quickly  too  little 
good  would  be  accomplished."  The  reader  wiU  here  per- 
haps infer  (  and  rightly)  that  my  fear  of  hasty  executive 
action  was  really  bom  of  a  desire  to  have  a  hand  in  the 
crusade,  and  I  knew  that  this  would  be  impossible  until  I 
should  have  regained  my  freedom. 

Waxing  crafty,  yet,  as  I  believed,  writing  truth,  I  con- 
tinued: "I  need  money  badly,  and  if  I  cared  to,  I  could 
sell  my  information  and  services  to  the  New  York  World  or 
New  York  Journal  for  a  large  amount.  But  I  do  not  intend  to 
advertise  Connecticut  as  a  Hell-hole  of  Iniquity,  Insanity, 
and  Injustice.  If  the  facts  appeared  in  the  public  press  at 
this  time,  Connecticut  would  lose  caste  with  her  sister  States. 
And  they  would  profit  by  Connecticut's  disgrace  and  cor- 
rect the  abuses  before  they  could  be  put  on  the  rack.  As 
these  conditions  prevail  throughout  the  country,  there  is  no 
reason  why  Connecticut  should  get  all  the  abuse  and  criti- 
cism which  would  follow  any  such  revelation  of  disgusting 
abuse;  such  inhuman  treatment  of  human  wrecks.  If  pub- 
licity is  necessary  to  force  you  to  act  —  and  I  am  sure  it  will 
not  be  necessary  —  I  shaU  apply  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus, 
and,  in  proving  my  sanity  to  a  jury,  I  shall  incidentally 
prove  your  own  incompetence.  Permitting  such  a  whirl- 
wind reformer  to  drag  Connecticut's  disgrace  into  open 
court  would  prove  your  incompetence." 

For  several  obvious  reasons  it  is  well  that  I  did  not  at  that 
time  attempt  to  convince  a  jury  that  I  was  mentally  sound. 
The  mere  outlining  of  my  ambitious  scheme  for  reform  would 
have  caused  my  immediate  return  to  the  asylum.     For  all 


204  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

that,  the  scheme  itself,  stripped  of  its  insane  trappings,  was 
then,  as  it  is  to-day,  absolutely  feasible  and  sane;  and,  in 
this  assertion,  I  am  supported  by  the  opinions  of  certain 
alienists  who  have  read  my  story.  According  to  these 
authorities,  my  consistent  and  persistent  desire  to  effect  re- 
forms, taken  by  itself,  was  not  characteristic  of  any  form  of 
mental  disorder.  It  was  a  sane  idea;  but,  taking  hold  of 
me,  as  it  did,  while  my  imagination  was  at  white  heat,  I  was 
impelled  to  attack  my  problem  with  compromising  energy 
and,  for  a  time,  in  a  manner  so  unconvincing  as  to  obscure 
the  essential  sanity  of  my  cherished  purpose. 

I  closed  my  letter  as  foUows:  "No  doubt  you  will  con- 
sider certain  parts  of  this  letter  rather  'fresh.'  I  apologize 
for  any  such  passages  now,  but,  as  I  have  an  Insane  License, 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  what  I  think.  What's  the  use  when 
one  is  caged  like  a  criminal?" 

"P.  S.  This  letter  is  a  confidential  one  —  and  is  to  be 
returned  to  the  writer  upon  demand." 

The  letter  was  eventually  forwarded  to  my  conservator 
and  is  now  in  my  possession. 

As  a  result  of  my  protest  the  Governor  immediately 
interrogated  the  superintendent  of  the  institution  where 
"  Jekyll-Hyde"  had  tortured  me.  Until  he  laid  before  the 
superintendent  my  charges  against  his  assistant,  the  doctor  in 
authority  had  not  even  suspected  that  I  had  been  tortured. 
This  superintendent  took  pride  in  his  institution.  He  was 
sensitive  to  criticism  and  it  was  natural  that  he  should 
strive  to  palliate  the  offense  of  his  subordinate.  He  said 
that  I  was  a  most  troublesome  patient,  which  was,  indeed, 
the  truth;  for  I  had  always  a  way  of  my  own  for  doing 
the  things  that  worried  those  in  charge  of  me.  In  a  word, 
I  brought  to  bear  upon  the  situation  what  I  have  previously 
referred  to  as  "an  uncanny  admixture  of  sanity." 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  205 

The  Governor  did  not  meet  the  assistant  physician  who 
had  maltreated  me.  The  reprimand,  if  there  was  to  be  any, 
was  left  to  the  superintendent  to  administer. 

In  my  letter  to  the  Governor  I  had  laid  more  stress  upon  the 
abuses  to  which  I  had  been  subjected  at  this  private  institu- 
tion than  I  had  upon  conditions  at  the  State  Hospital.  This 
may  have  had  some  effect  on  the  action  he  took,  or  rather 
failed  to  take.  At  any  rate,  as  to  the  State  Hospital,  no 
action  was  taken.  Not  even  a  word  of  warning  was  sent  to 
the  officials,  as  I  know,  for  before  leaving  the  institution 
I  asked  the  doctors.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  Governor 
was  derelict  in  his  duty.  If  my  letter  was  convincing 
enough  to  induce  him  to  inquire  into  a  private  institution, 
surely  he  should  have  been  equally  willing  to  investigate 
charges  affecting  the  institution  of  which  he  was  the  nominal 
head.  The  least  that  he  could  have  done  would  have  been 
to  convince  himself  that  my  charges  were  untrue. 

Governors,  for  selfish  or  political  reasons,  are  only  too 
willing  to  avoid  the  inevitable  political  scandal  which  follows 
nine  out  of  ten  investigations  of  institutions  politically  organ- 
ized. Instead  of  humanely  considering  the  just  claims  of 
the  State's  unfortunates,  men  in  such  positions  of  power  too 
often  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  cries  of  the  helpless.  It  is  trite 
to  observe  that  the  average  politician  (and  most  governors 
are  such)  mistakenly  thinks  he  must  have  one  deaf  ear 
which  he  may  interpose  between  himself  and  the  call  of 
duty,  while  his  supposedly  "good"  ear  is  reserved  for  the 
bad  advice  of  better  politicians  than  himself. 

I  am  far  from  saying  that  the  Governor  in  question  delib- 
erately suppressed  an  investigation  which  his  conscience 
dictated.  I  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  he  thought  an 
investigation  would  produce  no  results  of  value.  He  knew 
that,  on  the  whole,  the  State  Hospital  was  fairly  well  managed 


2o6  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

— or  at  least  better  managed  than  similar  institutions  in  many 
other  States.  Further,  he  knew  that  the  doctors  in  charge 
were  reputable  men,  and  that,  if  they  could  not  correct 
abuses,  a  new  medical  staff  would  not  be  likely  to  do  so 
either.  Considering  the  deplorable  yet  excusable  ignorance 
that  prevails  in  reference  to  the  treatment  of  insanity  and 
the  proper  management  of  institutions  for  the  insane,  the 
action  of  the  Governor  was  logical  and,  without  doubt, 
honest.  In  fact,  I  question  whether  one  Governor  in  ten 
in  this  country  to-day  has  ever  heard  the  word  "Non-Re- 
straint,"— much  less  understands  that  a  thorough  enforcement 
of  its  principles  will  eliminate  a  majority  of  existing  abuses. 


Though  my  letter  did  not  bring  about  an  investigation  it 
was  not  altogether  without  fruit.  Naturally,  it  was  with 
considerable  satisfaction  that  I  informed  the  doctors  that  I 
had  outwitted  them  in  their  endeavor  to  keep  me  in  exile; 
and  it  was  with  even  greater  satisfaction  that  I  now  saw  those 
in  authority  make  a  determined,  if  temporary,  effort  to  pro- 
tect helpless  patients  against  the  cruelty  of  attendants.  The 
moment  the  doctors  were  convinced  that  I  had  gone  over 
their  heads  and  had  sent  a  characteristic  letter  of  protest  to 
the  Governor  of  the  State,  that  moment  they  began  to  pro- 
tect themselves  with  an  energy  born  of  a  realization  of  their 
former  shortcomings.  Whether  or  not  the  management  in 
question  will  admit  that  their  unwonted  activity  was  due  to 
my  coup,  the  fact  remains  that  the  summary  discharge  of 
several  attendants  accused  and  proved  guilty  of  brutality 
immediately  followed,  and,  for  a  while,  put  a  stop  to  wanton 
assaults  against  which,  for  a  period  of  four  months,  I  had 
protested  in  vain.  This  I  know,  for  certain  inmates  of  the 
violent  ward  told  me  that  comparative  peace  reigned  about 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  207 

this  time.  That  attendants  can  be  scared  into  humanity,  is 
proved  by  a  remark  made  to  me  by  one  the  very  day  he  had 
been  discharged  for  choking  a  patient  into  an  insensibihty  so 
profound  that  it  had  been  necessary  to  call  a  physician  to 
restore  him.  Said  this  brute:  "It  seems  to  me  they're  get- 
ting pretty  damned  strict  these  days,  discharging  an  attendant 
for  simply  choking  a  patient."  This  discharged  and  guilty 
attendant  immediately  secured  a  position  in  another  hospital 
of  the  same  character  in  a  city  not  twenty  miles  distant. 


XXV 

My  failure  to  force  the  Governor  to  investigate  conditions 
at  the  State  Hospital  convinced  me  that  I  coiild  not  hope  to 
prosecute  my  reforms  until  I  should  have  regained  my  lib- 
erty and  re-established  myself  in  my  old  world.  I  there- 
fore quitted  the  role  of  reformer-militant;  and,  but  for  an 
occasional  outburst  of  righteous  indignation  at  some  fla- 
grant abuse  which  obtruded  itself  upon  my  notice,  my 
demeanor  was  that  of  one  quite  content  with  his  lot  in  life. 

I  was  indeed  content  —  I  was  happy.  Knowing  that  I 
should  soon  regain  my  freedom,  I  foimd  it  easy  to  forgive 
—  taking  great  pains  not  to  forget  —  any  injustice  which  had 
been  done  me.  Liberty  is  sweet,  even  to  one  whose  appreci- 
ation of  it  has  never  been  augmented  by  its  temporary  loss. 
The  pleasurable  emotions  which  my  impending  liberation 
aroused  within  me  served  to  soften  my  speech  and  render 
me  more  tractable.  This  change  the  assistant  physician  was 
not  slow  to  note,  though  he  was  rather  slow  in  placing  in 
me  that  degree  of  confidence  which  I  felt  that  I  deserved. 
So  justifiable,  however,  was  his  suspicion  that  even  at  the 
time  I  forgave  him  for  it.  I  had  on  so  many  prior  occasions 
"played  possum"  that  the  doctor  naturally  attributed  complex 
and  imfathomable  motives  to  my  most  innocent  acts.  For  a 
long  time  he  entertained  the  idea  that  I  was  trying  to  capture 
his  confidence,  win  the  privilege  of  an  unlimited  parole,  and 
so  effect  my  escape  from  the  institution.  He  had  doubt- 
less not  forgotten  the  several  plans  of  escape  which  I  had 
toyed  with  and  bragged  about  while  in  the  violent  ward. 

208 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  209 

Though  I  was  granted  considerable  liberty  during  the 
months  of  April,  May,  and  June,  1903,  not  until  July  did  I 
enjoy  a  so-called  "unlimited  parole"  which  enabled  me  to 
walk  about  the  neighboring  city  unattended.  My  privi- 
leges were  granted  so  gradually  that  these  first  tastes  of  re- 
gained freedom,  though  delightful,  were  not  so  thrilling  as 
one  might  imagine.  I  took  everything  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and,  except  when  I  deliberately  analyzed  my  feelings,  was 
scarcely  conscious  of  my  former  deprivations. 

This  power  to  forget  the  past  —  or  recall  it  only  at  will  — 
has  contributed  much  to  my  happiness.  A  majority  of 
those  who  have  suffered  experiences  such  as  mine  are  prone 
to  brood  upon  them,  and  I  cannot  but  attribute  my  happy 
immunity  from  unpleasant  memories  to  the  fact  that  I 
have  viewed  my  own  case  much  as  a  physician  might 
view  that  of  a  patient.  My  past  is  a  thing  apart.  I  can 
examine  this  or  that  phase  of  it  in  the  clarifying  and 
comforting  light  of  reason.  I  can,  as  it  were,  hold  my  past 
in  my  hand  and  analyze  its  complex  and  bewildering  collec- 
tion of  thoughts  under  a  memory  rendered  microscopic. 
And  I  am  further  comforted  by  the  belief  that  I  have  a  dis- 
tinct mission  in  life  —  a  chance  for  usefulness  which  might 
never  have  been  mine  had  I  enjoyed  unbroken  health. 

The  last  few  months  of  my  life  in  the  hospital  were  much 
alike,  save  that  each  succeeding  one  brought  with  it  an 
increased  degree  of  liberty.  My  hours  now  passed  pleas- 
antly. Time  did  not  drag,  for  I  was  engaged  upon  some 
matter,  every  minute.  I  would  draw,  read,  write,  and  talk. 
If  any  feeling  was  dominant  it  was  my  feeling  for  art;  and, 
had  I  then  been  forced  to  choose  irrevocably  a  life-work,  I 
should  have  decided  in  favor  of  the  study  of  art.  I  read 
with  avidity  books  on  that  subject.  In  fact,  I  have  never 
read  any  books  with  greater  interest  than  these,  which,  to- 


210  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

day,  interest  me  scarcely  at  all.  For,  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
the  moment  I  again  found  myself  in  the  world  of  business 
my  desire  to  become  an  artist  died  almost  as  suddenly  as  it 
had  been  born.  Though  my  artistic  ambition  was  clearly 
an  outgrowth  of  my  abnormal  condition,  and  languished 
when  normality  asserted  itself,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  I 
should  even  now  take  a  lively  interest  in  the  study  of  art  if 
I  were  so  situated  as  to  be  deprived  of  a  free  choice  of  my 
mode  of  life.  The  use  of  words  now  enthralls  me  because 
it  is  eminently  suited  to  my  purposes;  and  its  mere  utility 
is  re-enforced  by  a  perhaps  instinctive  though  long-latent 
desire  for  expression. 

During  the  summer  of  1903,  friends  and  relatives  often 
called  to  see  me.  The  talks  we  had  were  of  great  and  last- 
ing benefit  to  me.  Though  I  had  rid  myself  of  my  more 
extravagant  and  impossible  delusions  of  grandeur  —  flying 
machines  and  the  like  —  I  still  discussed  with  intense  ear- 
nestness other  schemes,  which,  though  allied  to  delusions 
of  grandeur,  were,  in  truth,  still  more  closely  allied  to  san- 
ity itself.  My  talk  was  of  that  high  but  perhaps  suspi- 
cious type  in  which  Imagination  overrules  Common  Sense. 
Lingering  delusions,  as  it  were,  made  great  projects  seem 
easy.  That  they  were  at  least  feasible  under  certain  condi- 
tions my  mentors  admitted.  Only  I  was  in  an  insane  hurry 
to  produce  results.  Work  that  I  now  understand  cannot 
be  accomplished  in  less  than  five  or  ten  years,  if,  indeed,  in 
a  life -time,  I  then  believed  could  be  accomplished  in  a 
year  or  two,  and  by  me  single-handed.  Had  I  had  none 
but  insane  persons  to  talk  with  I  might  have  continued  to 
cherish  a  distorted  perspective.  As  it  was,  the  unanimity 
of  sane  opinions  helped  me  to  correct  my  views;  and  I  am 
confident  that  each  talk  with  relatives  and  friends  hastened 
my  return  to  normality. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  211 

Though  I  was  not  discharged  from  the  State  Hospital  until 
September  loth,  1903,  during  the  preceding  month  I  visited 
my  home  several  times,  once  for  three  days.  These  trips 
were  not  only  interesting  but  steadying  in  their  effect.  I 
willingly  returned  to  the  hospital  for  the  remaining  days  of 
my  confinement.  Though  several  friends  expressed  sur- 
prise at  this  willingness  to  enter  again  an  institution  where 
I  had  experienced  so  many  hardships,  to  me  my  temporary 
return  was  not  in  the  least  irksome.  As  I  had  penetrated 
and  conquered  the  mysteries  of  that  dark  side  of  life,  it  no 
longer  held  any  terrors  for  me.  Nor  does  it  to  this  day.  I 
can  contemplate  the  future  with  a  greater  degree  of  com- 
placency than  can  those  whose  lot  in  life  has  been  uniformly 
fortunate.  In  fact,  I  said  at  that  time  that,  should  my  con- 
dition ever  demand  it,  I  would  again  enter  a  hospital  for  the 
insane,  quite  as  willingly  as  the  average  person  now  enters 
a  general  hospital  for  the  treatment  of  a  bodily  ailment. 

It  was  in  this  complacent  and  confident  mood,  and  with- 
out any  sharp  line  of  transition,  that  I  again  began  life  in 
my  old  world  of  companionship  and  of  business. 


PART  II 


XXVI 

After  again  becoming  a  free  man,  my  mind  would  not 
abandon  the  miserable  ones  whom  I  had  left  behind.  I 
thought  with  horror  that  my  reason  had  been  threatened 
and  baffled  at  every  turn.  Without  malice  toward  those 
who  had  had  me  in  charge,  I  yet  looked  with  contempt 
upon  the  system  by  which  I  had  been  treated. 

The  word  "hospital"  should  be  one  of  the  most  comfort- 
ing in  the  language.  Yet  I  know  that  probably  in  every 
State  in  the  Union  men  and  women  on  the  verge  of  collapse 
have  killed  themselves  to  escape  commitment  —  and 
others,  having  survived  confinement,  have  deliberately 
chosen  death  rather  than  re-commitment.  As  a  patient,  in 
my  hearing,  once  remarked:  "I'd  rather  be  hung  than  kiUed 
an  inch  at  a  time."  This  thought  was  more  forcefully  ex- 
pressed by  an  ex-patient  whose  case  was  brought  to  my  at- 
tention by  the  Kentucky  lawyer-attendant  already  referred 
to.  He  had  been  temporarily  cured,  but  seemed  threatened 
with  a  return  of  his  malady.  Divining  the  secret  purpose  of 
his  relatives  to  return  him  to  an  asylum,  where  he  had  for- 
merly been  terribly  abused,  he  shot  himself  through  the  heart. 
A  message  left  by  this  victim  of  public  indifference,  or  (shall 
I  say?)  ignorance,  read  as  follows: 

"I'd  rather  die  than  go  back  there." 

Only  within  about  twenty  years  has  the  public  taken 
kindly  even  to  "general"  hospitals,  and  only  within  the 
last  decade  have  hospitals  for  the  insane  begun  to  lose  their 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  213 

forbidding  suggestiveness.  Even  to-day  they  are  almost  uni- 
versally regarded  with  dread.  Why?  Partly  because  of 
man's  instinctive  dread  of  insanity  itself;  but  quite  as  much, 
I  think,  because  of  the  terrifying  air  of  mystery  which 
for  generations  has  enshrouded  these  institutions.  This 
air  of  mystery,  fostered  by  the  secretive  conduct  of  our 
asylums,  has  been  perpetuated  and,  indeed,  in  a  large  de- 
gree, created,  by  rumors  and  occasional  proof  of  abuses 
appearing  now  and  then  in  the  public  print.  Thus  it 
is  that  the  shortcomings  of  the  State  itself  often  force  a 
desperately  despondent  man  to  take  that  life  which  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  State  to  protect.  For  these  avoidable  suicides 
we  cannot,  however,  wholly  blame  the  present  manage- 
ments of  our  existing  hospitals.  They  are  partly  the  re- 
sult of  that  dread  of  insanity  and  asylums  which  has  been 
bequeathed  to  us  by  past  centuries  —  a  dread  that  will 
continue  to  force  men  to  a  self-inflicted  death  until  a  univer- 
sal confidence  in  such  hospitals,  and  a  rational  view  of 
insanity  itself,  shall  obtain. 


XXVII 

I  HAVE  authority  for  the  statement  that  there  is  no  specific 
for  insanity  or  for  any  phase  or  type  thereof.  For  the  most 
part,  all  that  any  system  of  treatment  can  hope  to  do  is  to 
give  nature  a  chance  to  right  itself  by  surrounding  the  pa- 
tient with  the  best  possible  conditions.  Yet,  in  most 
instances,  this  is  precisely  what  is  not  done. 

What  then  are  some  of  the  causes  for  this  state  of  things, 
and  what  are  some  of  the  remedies  ?  Of  improved  sanitary 
equipment  I  shall  speak  later.  Here  let  me  speak  at  length 
only  of  food  and  of  dining  facilities. 

During  the  past  century  the  insane,  as  a  class,  have  per- 
haps been  the  poorest  fed.  Not  many  generations  ago  it 
was  universally  the  custom  to  feed  them  on  veritable  husks, 
scarce  fit  for  swine.  In  some  communities  to-day  they  have 
to  be  content  with  the  coarsest  food,  frequently  of  such  qual- 
ity that  a  sane  person  would  refuse  to  eat  it.  Attendants, 
whose  fare  is  little,  if  any  better,  can  testify  to  this  fact.  Indeed 
they  do  occasionally  testify  forcefully  by  threatening  to  stop 
work  unless  the  management  improve  the  quality  of  their 
rations.  Such  protests  are  usually  effective.  But  what  can 
patients  do  to  emphasize  their  protest?  Nothing,  except 
to  stop  eating  —  a  course  which  many  of  them  take  from 
time  to  time,  until  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  overcomes 
their  eminently  sane  disgust. 

Though  there  are  to-day  in  this  country  comparatively 
few  institutions  where  patients  and  attendants  are  fed  as 
well  as  they  deserve,  it  is  my  opinion  that  the  several  man- 

214 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  215 

agements  are  entitled  to  considerable  credit  for  the  great 
improvement  that  has  been  made  in  this  particular  depart- 
ment during  the  past  score  of  years.  In  many  institutions 
an  honest  attempt  is  being  made  to  provide  nothing  but 
wholesome  food.  Unfortunately  it  is  equally  true  that  in 
some  institutions  dishonest  officials  consider  the  happiness 
of  their  charges  of  so  little  moment  that  for  a  few  mean  dol- 
lars they  will  barter  it  away  according  to  the  rules  of  that 
discredited  political  game,  "Graft."  Whenever  and  wher- 
ever the  members  of  a  medical  or  executive  staff  of  a  hospital 
for  the  insane  are  dependent  upon  a  political  party  or  polit- 
ical "boss"  for  their  continuance  in  office,  you  will  be  apt 
to  find  in  operation  a  pernicious  system  of  perquisites  which 
can  be  wrung  from  the  State's  appropriations  only  at  the 
expense  of  the  inmates  of  the  hospitals.  This  "  graft, "  which 
first  strikes  at  the  consciences  of  the  men  in  authority,  at  one 
and  the  same  time  strikes  the  inmates  in  that  most  vulnerable 
spot  —  the  stomach.  Each  and  every  state-appropriated 
dollar  that  is  diverted  by  a  dishonest  manager  or  manage- 
ment means  just  so  much  less  comfort  for  the  inmates,  who 
already  suffer  unnecessary  hardships  because  of  inadequate 
appropriations.  The  quality  and  quantity  of  food  provided 
is  sure  to  be  adversely  affected.  Usually  it  is  the  purchasing 
of  supplies  which  affords  the  only  sure  opportunity  for 
"graft,"  and  as  a  major  part  of  the  appropriations  must  be 
spent  for  food,  dishonesty,  where  it.  exists,  affects  vitally  the 
well-being  of  the  patients.  To  the  mind  of  every  right- 
thinking  person,  the  political  "grafter,"  who  will  wring 
his  mean  gains  from  the  very  blood  of  the  most  unfortunate, 
is  a  man  deserving  of  discovery  and  its  consequent  disgrace 
and  punishment.  I  predict  that  honest  legislative  investiga- 
tions will  uncover  many  miserable  specimens  of  humanity 
who  for  years  have  fattened  by  the  emaciation  of  misery  itself. 


2i6  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

In  arguing  for  a  right  quantity  and  quality  of  food  I  do 
not  mean  that  a  State  should  be  expected  to  provide  a  great 
variety.  At  this  stage  of  hospital  development  that  is  of 
course  impossible.  But  at  least  an  illusion  of  variety  might 
be  created  if  the  menus  were  not  decided  upon  months  in 
advance.  To  know  that  certain  articles  of  food  will  appear 
on  a  certain  day  of  the  week,  each  week,  each  month,  is  to 
rob  a  patient  of  that  element  of  surprise  which  in  itself 
serves  as  an  appetizer. 

During  the  first  six  months  of  my  confinement  at  the  State 
Hospital,  though  I  finally  grew  tired  of  the  food  provided 
and  had  difficulty  in  swallowing  enough  of  it  to  satisfy 
hunger,  the  most  serious  fault  I  had  to  find  with  it  was  with 
respect  to  its  quantity.  Not  until  I  was  admitted  to  the 
common  dining-room  of  the  ward  was  I  able  to  satisfy  my 
hunger.  Then,  for  nearly  a  month  —  this  after  two  months 
of  eating  in  comparative  solitude  —  I  ate  two,  sometimes 
three,  of  the  regular  portions  at  each  meal.  This  was  not 
gluttony  —  lack  of  variety,  if  nothing  else,  protected  me 
against  sinful  indulgence.  It  was  occasioned  by  an  instinc- 
tive desire  to  repair  the  damage  done  during  my  period  of 
"seclusion."  That  my  loss  in  weight  already  referred  to  was 
occasioned  more  by  privation  than  by  my  state  of  mind,  or 
the  abuse  to  which  I  was  subjected,  is  borne  out  by  an  earlier 
experience;  for  during  my  strait- jacket  ordeal  at  the  private 
hospital  I  was  given  nourishing  food  at  frequent  intervals 
and  I  left  the  padded  cell  weighing  nearly  as  much  as  the 
day  I  first  entered  it. 

A  majority  of  patients  to-day  are  fed  in  small  dining-rooms 
connected  with  the  ward  in  which  they  happen  to  be  con- 
fined. The  food  is  sent  from  the  main  kitchen  to  these 
centers  of  distribution  and  there  apportioned  and  served  by 
attendants.     The   attendants    are   supposed    to    allow    the 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  217 

patients  a  sufficient  time  to  eat  their  meal,  but  it  frequently 
happens  that  certain  ones  have  not  finished  eating  when  the 
attendant  in  charge  says:  "All  up!"  In  a  violent  ward,  and 
sometimes  in  others,  any  patient  who  fails  to  obey  that  com- 
mand invites  abuse.  More  than  once  have  I  seen  a  patient 
forced  to  leave  a  half- eaten  meal  and  quit  the  room  —  or 
perhaps  be  forcibly  ejected;  and  I  myself  have  often  pru- 
dently stowed  away  in  a  hurry  an  adequate  amount  of  food 
within  an  uncertain  and  arbitrarily  limited  time.  One  of 
the  most  revolting  and  least  justifiable  assaults  I  ever  wit- 
nessed occurred  in  the  dining-room  of  the  violent  ward  at 
the  State  Hospital.  When  the  patient  had  been  kicked  and 
choked  into  a  state  bordering  on  insensibility  the  attendants 
calmly,  but  breathlessly,  returned  to  their  own  meal.  I  shud- 
der when  I  think  of  the  punishment  that  would  have  been 
mine  had  circumstances  forced  me  to  enter  a  violent  ward 
during  that  stage  of  my  illness  which  was  characterized  by  a 
continued  refusal  to  eat  what  was  placed  before  me  —  ex- 
cept when  my  inscrutable  impulses  directed  otherwise.  It  is 
my  conviction  that  this  book  would  never  have  been  written 
had  not  a  "timely  generosity"  kept  me  from  such  abuse 
while  mute  and  crippled. 

But  in  a  hospital  which  has  that  modern  improvement 
known  as  an  associate  dining-hall,  such  abuses  as  I  have 
described  cannot  affect  a  majority  of  the  patients.  The 
State  Hospital  in  which  I  was  confined,  now  has  as  good  a 
dining-hall  of  this  type  as  any  in  the  country;  and  its  out- 
lying groups  of  buildings  have  smaller  ones.  This  associate 
or  "congregate"  dining-hall  was  first  used  about  three  months 
before  I  was  discharged;  consequently  I  am  in  a  position  to 
contrast  its  advantages  with  the  shortcomings  of  the  ward 
dining-rooms.  The  associate  hall  in  question  had  a  seating 
capacity  of  twelve  hundred.     This  fact  in  itself  is  perhaps 


2l8  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

surprising,  for  most  people  picture  an  asylum  for  the  insane 
as  a  place  of  great  disorder,  if  not  riot.  Yet  day  after  day, 
twelve  hundred  insane  men  and  women  here  gather  and 
partake  of  the  indifferent,  though  wholesome  and  life-sus- 
taining, food  provided  by  the  State.  And  this,  too,  with 
relatively  less  disorder  than  will  be  found  among  an  equal 
number  of  undergraduates  at  any  of  our  great  universities 
where  similar  dining-halls  are  in  operation. 

In  an  associate  dining-room,  under  the  eyes  of  one  or  more 
of  the  assistant  physicians,  the  solicitous  consideration  for 
his  charges  on  the  part  of  the  brutal  type  of  attendant  is 
positively  refreshing,  even  if  inspired  by  the  motive  of  self- 
interest.  Aside  from  the  personal  safety  of  the  patient 
which  thus  results,  there  are  many  other  advantages.  The 
patient  is  sure  to  get  a  sufficient  amount  of  food  and  an  ample 
allowance  of  time  in  which  to  eat  it.  Usually  an  hour  is 
allowed  for  each  meal  —  that  time  including  the  walking 
to  and  from  the  dining-hall.  In  this  way  the  inmates  are 
able  to  while  away  three  hours  of  the  long  day.  At  noon 
and  night  an  orchestra  enlivens  the  meal.  That  this  music 
has  much  to  do  with  the  good  order  that  obtains  is  an  ad- 
mitted fact,  for  it  has  been  proved  that  music  is  an  excel- 
lent medicine  for  the  mentally  disturbed.  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  the  associate  dining-hall  does  not  utterly 
eliminate  the  abuses  which  exist  in  so  many  wards.  Un- 
fortunately only  those  able  to  take  some  care  of  themselves 
are  permitted  to  enjoy  its  advantages.  Those  most  in  need 
of  protection  are  still  left  to  the  uncertain  ministrations  of 
unwatched  attendants. 


XXVIII 

Worse  than  the  negligent  treatment  of  the  body  is  a  vexa- 
tious treatment, of  the  mind  itself.  I  have  already  made  it 
clear  that  unjustifiable  interference  with  the  mail-matter  of 
the  patient  is  a  common  practice.  This  may  be  aptly  desig- 
nated as  the  major  petty  abuse  of  that  multitude  of  petty 
abuses  which  help  to  make  the  lot  of  the  insane  so  hard. 

Next  to  the  instinctive  desire  for  freedom,  which  naturally 
inspires  almost  every  inmate  of  an  asylum,  perhaps  the 
commonest  desire  is  to  be  allowed  to  write  and  receive  letters 
as  he  had  been  accustomed  to  do  before  his  commitment. 
This  gives  rise  to  the  universal  bone  of  contention  on  which 
doctors  and  patients  chew  —  yes,  and  over  which  they  growl 
and  snarl.  Every  day  in  the  year,  year  in  and  year  out,  in 
the  majority  of  such  institutions,  this  battle  is  waged.  The 
patients  chafe  under  censorship,  let  alone  confiscation. 

In  the  main  they  are  right.  It  is  without  question  unjust, 
as  it  is,  indeed,  illegal,  that  a  patient  should  be  denied  the 
privilege  of  communicating,  almost  at  will,  with  at  least  his 
legally  appointed  conservator.  Yet  doctors  of  the  despot 
type  do  censor  and  frequently  destroy  letters,  —  except  in 
those  rare  instances  when  a  patient  writes  a  string  of  silly 
nothings,  or  speaks  in  complimentary  terms  of  the  institu- 
tion and  its  management.  But  missives  of  the  latter  sort 
are  naturally  rare  —  and  will  continue  to  be  so  until  the  sev- 
eral managements  begin  to  inspire  encomiums  by  deserving 
them.  The  elimination  of  this  one  abuse  would  go  far  to 
eliminate   others    which    grow    out   of    it.     On    the    other 

219 


220  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

hand,  when  the  physical  and  allied  abuses  shall  have  been 
done  away  with,  there  will  be  less  temptation  to  interfere 
with  patients'  correspondence;  for,  the  moment  patients  are 
universally  treated  with  consideration  they  will  be  pretty 
likely  to  declare  that  fact  in  their  letters.  Then,  not  only 
will  the  doctors  in  authority  not  censor  and  wantonly  destroy 
these  letters  —  they  will  exert  themselves  to  keep  patients  in 
close  and  honest  touch  with  their  relatives  and  friends. 

I,  perhaps,  feel  more  strongly  on  this  subject  than  on 
almost  any  other.  I  know  what  it  is  to  be  kept  in  an  exile  so 
complete  that  I  could  not  send  a  message  of  any  sort  to  my 
legally  appointed  conservator  —  my  own  brother;  and  that, 
too,  at  a  time  when  I  greatly  desired  to  ask  him  for  assist- 
ance in  my  fight  against  abuse  and  positive  danger.  This 
situation  occurred  first  at  the  private  hospital  where  I  was 
strait- jacketed  for  three  weeks.  Within  a  month  of  its  first 
occurrence  it  occurred  again  at  the  State  Hospital.  Indeed, 
so  long  as  I  wrote  letters  at  these  two  institutions,  except  for 
a  short  initial  period  at  each,  I  never  felt  sure  that  my  let- 
ters were  not  being  held  or  destroyed  by  the  doctors  in 
authority,  —  and  with  reason.  My  letters  were  on  several 
occasions  confiscated  —  letters,  too,  which  there  was  no 
excuse  for  so  treating,  except  that  they  contained  nothing 
but  the  truth.  Though  many  of  my  letters  were  finally 
forwarded  to  my  conservator,  in  a  few  conspicuous  instances 
they  were  destroyed  without  the  knowledge  of  either  my 
conservator  or  myself.  I  have  already  described  how  an 
assistant  physician  arbitrarily  denied  my  request  that  I  be 
permitted  to  send  a  birthday  letter  to  my  father,  thereby  not 
merely  exceeding  his  authority  and  ignoring  decency,  but, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  stifling  a  sane  impulse.  That 
this  should  occur  while  I  was  confined  in  the  Bull  Pen  was 
not  so  surprising.     But,  about  four  months  later,  while  I 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  221 

was  an  inmate  of  one  of  the  best  wards,  a  similar  though 
less  open  interference  occurred.  At  this  time  I  was  so 
nearly  normal  that  my  discharge  was  but  a  question  of  a  few 
months.  Anticipating  my  return  to  my  old  world  I  decided 
to  begin  the  re-establishment  of  old  relations.  Accordingly, 
my  brother,  at  my  suggestion,  informed  certain  friends  that 
I  should  be  pleased  to  receive  letters  from  them.  They  soon 
wrote.  In  the  meantime  the  doctor  had  been  instructed  to 
deliver  to  me  any  and  all  letters  that  might  arrive.  He  did 
so  for  a  time,  and  that  without  censoring.  As  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, after  nearly  three  practically  letterless  years,  I  found 
rare  delight  in  replying  to  my  re-awakened  correspondents. 
Yet  some  of  these  letters,  written  for  the  deliberate  purpose 
of  re-establishing  myself  in  the  sane  world,  were  destroyed  by 
the  doctor  in  authority.  At  the  time,  not  one  word  did  he 
say  to  me  about  the  matter.  I  had  handed  him  for  maihng 
certain  letters,  unsealed.  He  did  not  mail  them,  nor  did  he 
forward  them  to  my  conservator  as  he  should  have  done, 
and  had  earlier  agreed  to  do  with  all  letters  which  he 
could  not  see  his  way  clear  to  approve.  It  was  fully  a 
month  before  I  learned  that  my  friends  had  not  received  my 
replies  to  their  letters.  Then  I  accused  the  doctor  of  de- 
stroying them,  and  he,  with  belated  frankness,  admitted  that 
he  had  done  so.  He  offered  no  better  excuse  for  his  action 
than  the  mere  statement  that  he  did  not  approve  of  the  sen- 
timents I  had  expressed.  Another  flagrant  and  typical  in- 
stance of  such  interference  was  that  of  a  letter  addressed  to 
me  in  reply  to  one  which  I  had  mailed  surreptitiously.  The 
person  to  whom  I  wrote,  a  friend  of  years'  standing,  later 
informed  me  that  he  had  sent  the  reply.  I  never  received 
it.  Neither  did  my  conservator.  Were  it  not  that  I  feel 
absolutely  sure  that  the  letter  in  question  was  received  at 
the  hospital  and  destroyed,  I  should  not  now  raise  this  point. 


222  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

But  such  a  point,  if  raised  at  all,  must  of  course  be  made 
without  that  direct  proof  which  can  come  only  from  the 
man  guilty  of  an  act  which  in  the  sane  world  is  regarded  as 
odious  and  criminal.  If  a  crime  in  the  sane  world,  surely 
it  is  doubly  a  crime  when  its  commission  injures  a  person 
already  stripped  of  most  of  his  privileges  by  the  laws  of 
the  State. 

My  experience  in  this  respect  was  not  exceptional.  I 
know  in  my  own  heart  that  during  the  past  year  thousands 
of  the  inmates  of  our  asylums  have  been  subjected  to  like 
unjust  treatment,  and  during  the  past  century,  tens  of  thou- 
sands. At  this  very  moment  many  patients  quite 
capable  of  writing  fairly  lucid,  even  sane,  letters,  are,  for 
any  one  of  a  number  of  reasons,  kept  out  of  touch 
with  relatives  and  friends.  These  sjonpathizers  would 
gladly  keep  in  closer  touch  with  the  afflicted  ones,  if  they 
were  advised  to  do  so  by  the  hospital  authorities.  But, 
instead  of  encouraging  such  beneficial  intercourse,  doctors, 
with  few  exceptions,  at  least  tacitly  discourage  it.  Occa- 
sionally those  in  authority  frankly  advise  against  it.  When 
such  advice  is  given  the  doctors  explain  at  plausible  length 
that  the  receiving  and  reading  of  messages  from  home  tends 
I  to  excite  the  patient  —  especially  when  the  patient  first  enters 
I  an  institution.  To  my  mind  this  procedure  is  wrong.  It 
is,  indeed,  worse  than  an  error  of  judgment.  It  is  a  posi- 
tive cruelty.  The  patient  when  committed  has  enough  to 
contend  against  without  being  forced  to  fight  for  his  life  and 
liberty  imsupported  by  messages  from  those  he  loves  —  or, 
for  that  matter,  even  temporarily  hates.  The  first  weeks  of 
exile  are  the  ones  which  determine  the  patient's  attitude 
toward  his  new  and  distressing  environment.  If  to  a  pa- 
tient's sense  of  loneliness  there  be  added  the  suspicion  or 
belief  that  his  relatives  and  friends  have  forsaken  him,  does 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  223 

it  not  stand  to  reason  that  his  recovery  will  be  retarded,  if, 
indeed,  the  consequent  dejection  does  not  forever  render 
recovery  impossible? 

I  do  not  exaggerate  when  I  say  that  this  interference  with 
a  privilege  which  is  part  of  the  birthright  of  every  American 
citizen  causes  more  anguish  among  the  insane  than  physical 
abuse.  One  can  suffer  an  incredible  amount  of  physical 
abuse,  and  forget  and  forgive.  But  the  opening  and  illegal 
confiscating  of  letters  is  nothing  short  of  dishonorable  in 
the  eyes  of  men  and  women  brought  up  to  respect  the 
sealed  messages  of  others.  The  moment  a  patient  proves 
to  himself  —  and  the  proof  is  seldom  wanting  —  that  his 
mail  is  being  tampered  with,  that  moment  he  loses  all  confi- 
dence in  the  doctors.  As  insanity  itself  in  a  majority  of 
cases  is  characterized  by  an  inordinate  suspicion  of  others, 
is  it  sensible  or  scientific  for  a  management  to  forever  under- 
mine the  very  grounds  of  belief  that  must  be  established  if  a 
recovery  is  to  be  hastened,  or  ever  secured  ? 

I  will  admit  that  there  may  be  an  occasional  instance 
where  messages  from  home  might  prove  detrimental,  but 
such  cases  are  so  rare  as  to  justify  my  contention  that  every 
patient,  from  the  moment  of  commitment,  should  be  allowed 
a  high  degree  of  liberty  in  the  matter  of  correspondence. 
His  letters,  both  incoming  and  outgoing,  should  not  be  sub- 
jected to  the  scrutiny  of  officials  whose  burdensome  duties 
so  often  render  impossible  anything  like  a  fair  inspection  of 
the  patients'  mail.  Indeed,  the  only  type  of  physician  that 
deserves  to  be  invested  with  powers  of  censorship  is  that,  I 
regret  to  say,  rare  type  of  man  who  is  so  interested  in  his 
work  that  he  desires  to  read  letters  for  the  purpose  of  judg- 
ing, with  scientific  precision,  a  patient's  state  of  mind  at  a 
given  time.  Without  question,  written  thoughts  furnish  an 
invaluable  basis  for  diagnosis,  and  to  deprive  a  high-minded 


224  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

psychiatrist  of  the  privilege  of  scientific  scrutiny  of  mail- 
matter  —  which  term  I  use  in  contradistinction  to  scrutiny 
of  the  more  common,  self-protecting  sort  condemned  — 
would  no  doubt  work  an  injustice  to  all  concerned.  Never- 
theless, in  view  of  the  fact  that  comparatively  few  physicians 
working  among  the  insane  seem  able  to  censor  mail  in  the 
right  rather  than  the  wrong  spirit,  I  feel  safe  in  recommend- 
ing that  a  letter  written  by  a  patient  should  be  sent  without 
censoring,  or  not  be  sent  at  all.  Inasmuch  as  a  psychia- 
trist genuinely  interested  in  the  welfare  of  a  given  patient 
will,  perforce,  be  on  the  best  of  terms  with  his  conservator, 
and,  in  most  instances,  with  the  patient  himself,  it  will  be  an 
easy  matter  for  him  to  secure  copies  of  a  patient's  letters  — 
or  the  originals  —  simply  by  stating  his  reasons  to  the  con- 
servator and  asking  for  what  he  wants.  In  this  way,  free- 
dom of  communication  with  the  outside  world  may  be  main- 
tained and  the  interests  of  the  patient  —  and  physician  — 
conserved.  In  contending  that  letters  written  by  a  patient 
should  be  forwarded  unopened,  unread,  I  do  not  mean  that 
the  inmate  of  an  asylum  should  be  permitted  to  write  to  any 
and  all  persons.  For  his  own  protection,  and  the  protection 
of  the  pubhc,  he  should  be  allowed  to  write  only  to  those  des- 
ignated by  the  persons  who  effect  his  commitment,  provided 
the  list  contain  at  least  one  other  name  besides  that  of  his 
appointed  conservator.  This  second  person  should  be  one 
who  is  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  patient,  for  it  fre- 
quently happens  that  the  legally  appointed  conservator  is 
derelict  in  his  duty.  A  committed  person  should  be  per- 
mitted to  write  at  will  to  his  conservator,  and  to  the  one 
other  person  selected  by  himself  —  or  selected  for  him, 
should  he  himself  express  no  choice.  In  addition  to  these 
two  persons,  as  many  other  relatives  and  friends  should  be 
placed  on  the  list  as  the  conservator  may  see  fit  to  designate. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  225 

Such  an  arrangement  would  relieve  the  doctors  both  of  work 
and  of  responsibility.  Instead  of  censoring  every  letter,  as 
they  now  feel  called  upon  to  do,  they  would  need  only  to 
satisfy  themselves  that  a  patient's  letter  was  addressed  to 
some  one  of  his  authorized  correspondents.^ 

An  objection  which  the  doctors  have  in  the  past  enter- 
tained toward  this  suggestion  is  that  the  patient  will  perhaps 
use  improper  language  in  his  letters.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  in  every  such  hospital  there  are  always  a  few  patients 
whose  condition  of  mind  will  impel  them  to  write  with  a 
brutal  frankness  likely  to  offend  the  taste  of  the  fastidious. 
The  fact  is,  however,  that  there  are  no  patients  at  any  time 
in  any  hospital  whose  letters  will  seriously  offend  the  sensi- 
bilities of  the  two  or  three  selected  representatives  whose 
bounden  duty  it  is  to  share  the  afflicted  one's  burden. 
Surely  a  patient's  letters  need  not  distress  his  relatives  and 
friends  more  than  his  unwilling  silence.  Further,  let  such 
relatives  and  friends  ask  themselves  whether  they  would 
rather  be  obliged  to  read  or,  alas!  to  write  such  letters. 

Those  patients  whose  mental  disease  is  of  a  form  charac- 
terized by  prevarication  —  a  kind  not  common  —  will  soon 
prove  the  fact  in  their  letters.  After  that  fact  has  been 
proved  the  recipients  of  the  letters  will  be  able  to  judge  their 
contents  and  act  accordingly.  Such  lies  can  do  no  one  harm, 
and  the  mere  telling  of  them  may,  perhaps,  do  the  patient 
good.  It  seems  to  be  an  almost  universal  belief  that  the 
statements  of  insane  persons  are  to  be  regarded  with  a  de- 
gree of  suspicion  that  amounts  to  disbelief.     On  this  point 

1  In  some  States  the  law  provides  that  a  patient  may  write  to  designated 
State  officials  and  that  such  letters  shall  be  forwarded,  uncensored.  As  far 
as  it  goes  it  is  a  good  law.  But  how  far  does  it  go  ?  Would  it  not  be  better  to 
put  and  keep  the  patient  in  close  and  honest  touch  with  relatives  and  friends 
by  adopting  some  such  plan  as  I  have  ventured  to  suggest  ?  Blood  is  thicker 
and  warmer  than  the  chilly  waters  of  impersonal  officialism. 
16 

1      • 


226  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

I  feel  qualified  to  speak.  Aside  from  delusions  (which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  question)  there  is,  I  am  sure,  not  a 
less  degree  of  truth  spoken  among  a  given  number  of  insane 
persons  than  among  a  like  number  of  sane  persons  indis- 
criminately selected.  The  insane,  as  a  class,  are  the  most 
outspoken  speakers  of  the  truth  to  be  found  anywhere,  in  that 
respect  rivaling  the  proverbial  child.  Freed  from  the  restrain- 
ing conventions  of  polite  society,  if  they  have  an  opinion  to 
offer  they  rid  themselves  of  it  without  reserve.  And  it  is  this 
very  freedom  of  expression  (aside  from  delusions)  which,  in 
my  opinion,  puts  the  statement  of  the  average  insane  person 
on  a  par  with  the  reserved,  self-interested,  and  frequently 
biased  statements  of  the  average  sane  member  of  society  at 
large.  I  argue  with  one  thought  in  mind:  that  the  inmates 
of  an  asylum  are,  on  the  whole,  as  well  qualified  to  teU  the 
truth  regarding  its  abuses  as  the  inhabitants  of  the  sane 
world  are  to  describe  abuses  in  their  respective  spheres  of 
activity. 

As  conditions  now  are,  hundreds  of  these  true  accounts 
of  abuse  are  each  year  confiscated  by  those,  directly  of  in- 
directly, guilty  of  it.  And  much  that  makes  the  fives  of  the 
inmates  so  miserable  has  continued  so  long  because  of  the 
ease  with  which  a  careless,  if  not  criminal,  management  may 
cover  its  tracks.  A  due  observance  of  the  Hberty  of  corre- 
spondence would  go  far  to  destroy  this  unjust  immunity. 
Physicians  to-day  often  declare  that  their  one  thought  in 
controUing  the  correspondence  of  an  insane  charge  is  that 
he  may  thus  be  kept  in  a  calm  and  peaceful  state  of  mind. 
But  their  real  motive  is  likely  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  sel- 
fish —  if  not  cowardly  —  desire  to  protect  themselves 
against  well  merited  criticism  by  the  pubfic.  Oftentimes 
this  self-protecting  attitude  of  the  medical  staff  may  be  traced 
to  the  known  but  not  openly  expressed  wish  of  a  timid  Board 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  227 

of  Trustees,  or  to  the  wish  of  supposedly  influential  poli- 
ticians, who  perhaps  ask  no  more  of  the  management  of  an 
institution  than  that  it  shall  so  conduct  affairs  as  to  avoid 
"investigations"  or  so-called  "hospital  scandals."  Thus 
the  sick  insane  are  made  to  suffer,  for  no  better  reason, 
apparently,  than  that  certain  sane  persons  in  positions  of 
responsibihty  may  escape  annoyance. 

What  will  put  an  end  to  this  disgraceful  state  of  affairs? 
Many  elaborate  statutes  would  seem,  on  their  face,  to  pro- 
tect patients  against  every  imaginable  abuse.  Yet  they  fail, 
and  will  continue  to  fail,  until  there  is  a  militant  public  sen- 
timent of  sufficient  strength  to  coerce  the  several  hospital 
managements  into  a  vigilant  and  considerate  activity.  The 
lasting  correction  of  evils  lies  with  the  public,  therefore  it 
behooves  each  individual  to  contribute  his  word  or  deed  to 
the  total  effect. 


XXIX 

The  central  problem  in  the  care  of  the  insane  is  the 
elimination  of  actual  physical  abuse.  What  I  have  nar- 
rated from  my  own  experience  and  from  the  experiences 
of  others  makes  clear  enough  the  nature  of  the  average 
attendant.  Under  a  bad  regime  their  baser  natures  grad- 
ually gain  the  mastery.  Surprising  as  it  may  seem,  many 
an  assault  is  due  in  the  last  analysis  to  a  wanton  desire  to 
satisfy  what  amounts  to  a  craving  for  human  blood.  This 
fact  is  well  illustrated  in  the  remark  of  an  attendant,  in  the 
Kentucky  institution  already  referred  to,  who  said,  "When 
I  came  here  if  any  one  had  told  me  that  I  would  be  guilty 
of  striking  a  patient  I  would  have  called  him  crazy  himself, 
but  now  I  take  delight  in  punching  hell  out  of  them." 

What  is  responsible  for  the  development  of  the  brutal 
attendant  and  his  continued  existence? 

In  the  first  place,  not  only  do  locks  and  bars  protect  men 
mean  enough  to  abuse  the  helpless,  the  sense  of  security 
itself  really  inspires  them  to  wicked  deeds.  And  this  feeling 
of  security  is  strengthened  by  the  knowledge  that  chance 
witnesses  can  but  rarely  testify  convincingly  in  a  court  of 
law.  Being  removed  from  the  restraining  influence  of  sane 
eyes,  the  attendant  does  not  fear  to  abuse,  or  (the  vicious 
type)  even  sometimes  to  kill  a  patient.  At  the  worst  he  sees  no 
greater  penalty  in  store  for  him  than  the  loss  of  his  position. 
The  chance  of  arrest  and  trial  is  so  remote  as  to  escape 
consideration;  and  a  trial  has  few  terrors  for  such  attend- 
ants as  are  arrested,  for  acquittal  is  almost  certain.    In- 

228 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  229 

deed,  on  those  rare  occasions  when  attendants  happen  to  be 
indicted  for  murder  or  manslaughter,  the  public  generally 
gives  them  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  assuming  that  their  work 
is  highly  dangerous,  and  arguing  that  the  occasional  sacrifice 
of  the  life  of  an  insane  patient  is  unavoidable,  therefore  jus- 
tifiable. In  this  the  public  is  in  error,  for,  though  the  work 
in  question  may  be,  and  at  times  is,  harassing,  it  is,  by  no 
means,  peculiarly  hazardous.  The  number  of  unprovoked 
attacks  made  upon  attendants  by  insane  patients  is,  in  fact, 
small,  and  would  become  almost  negligible  were  all  patients 
treated  kindly  from  the  moment  of  commitment. 

But  can  we  put  all  the  blame  on  attendants  for  assaulting 
patients  when  the  management  shows  no  aggressive  disposi- 
tion to  protect  the  latter?  Such  indifference  is  far  more 
reprehensible  than  the  cowardly  conduct  of  ill-paid  men,  the 
majority  of  whom  have  had  few  advantages  of  education. 
The  professional  thug-attendant  who,  when  a  fellow-attend- 
ant is  assaulting  a  patient,  deliberately  turns  his  back  so 
that  he  may  say,  if  ever  questioned,  that  he  saw  no  assault, 
is,  in  my  opinion,  less  deserving  of  censure  than  those  doc- 
tors who,  knowing  that  brutality  is  common  in  their  institu- 
tion, weakly  resign  themselves  to  what  they  call  "conditions." 

Much  of  the  suffering  among  the  insane  to-day  is,  in  my 
opinion,  due  to  the  giving  of  too  much  authority  to  assistant 
physicians.  Many  of  them,  especially  the  young  and  inex- 
perienced, are  not  to  be  trusted  implicitly.  Or,  if  they  are 
to  be  given  almost  absolute  authority  over  the  patients  in 
wards  assigned  to  their  care,  let  the  superintendent  exercise 
his  authority  to  set  aside  any  order  which  he  may  deem  in- 
expedient or  unjust.  All  superintendents  have  such  author- 
ity. What  I  wish  to  emphasize  is  that  they  too  often  fail  to 
exercise  it.  As  a  result  of  their  laxness,  or  timidity  —  a 
timidity  perhaps  inspired  by  a  misconception  of  the  ethics 


230  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

of  their  profession  —  the  helpless  patient  is  permitted  un- 
necessarily to  suffer;  and,  I  regret  to  record,  frequently  is 
this  suffering  of  the  patient  due  to  what  seems  a  selfish  de- 
sire of  the  superintendent  to  preserve  peace  in  his  official 
family  —  the  medical  staff.  OfiScial  peace  at  such  a  price 
amounts  to  crime.^ 

But  quite  as  culpable  as  lax  discipline  is  the  selfish  desire 
on  the  part  of  doctors  in  authority  to  escape  annoying  inves- 
tigations. When  it  does  happen  that  they  cannot  avoid 
reporting  felonious  assaults  or  suspected  m^urders  to  the 
proper  authorities,  their  action,  I  regret  to  say,  is  too  often  in 
mere  self-defense,  and  not  from  a  righteous  desire  to  protect 
their  patients.  Knowing  that  the  battered  and  mutilated 
condition  of  the  corpse,  or  a  living  victim  of  abuse,  for  that 
matter,  will  arouse  suspicion  on  the  part  of  the  relatives  of 
the  victim,  those  in  authority  sometimes  take  the  initiative 
in  order  to  "save  their  face."  In  making  this  assertion  I  am 
well  within  the  bounds  of  charity  and  truth,  and  the  conduct 
of  this  type  of  doctor  at  the  subsequent  trial  invariably  is 
such  as  to  support  my  contention.  This  behavior  is  quite 
human;  for,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  almost  every  honest 
investigation  into  these  suspicious  deaths  reveals  a  greater 
or  less  degree  —  sometimes  a  criminal  degree  —  of  neglect 
on  the  part  of  the  doctors  themselves.  If  cornered  at  last 
by  an  aroused  public  opinion  they  are  too  ready  to  shift  the 
responsibility  upon  the  ignorant  and  untrained  attendants 

^  Of  course  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  giving  a  high  degree 
of  authority  to  an  assistant  physician,  —  provided  his  commanding  officer, 
the  superintendent,  be  a  man  whose  own  standard  of  efficiency  is  so  high 
that  he  will,  perforce,  support  his  co-workers  in  their  eiTorts  to  produce  the 
best  results.  Thus  a  young  physician,  instead  of  having,  at  the  very  begin- 
ing  of  his  career,  all  ambition  and  initiative  ground  out  of  him  by  that 
sodden  and  fatal  sort  of  hospital  routine  into  which  he  is  so  often  forced  to 
sink,  will  have  an  opportunity  to  develop  into  a  man  of  capacity  and  in- 
creased usefulness. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  231 

whose  brutality  is  but  the  reflex  of  the  doctors'  indifference, 
neglect,  or  cowardice.  But  this  is  the  last  resort.  Usually 
they  will  first  equivocate  to  the  verge  of  deliberate  false- 
hood. They  will  outrun  the  public  by  giving  the  benefit  of 
all  doubts  to  the  attendants.  Not  to  do  so  would  in  many 
cases  cause  the  accused  to  turn  on  them  and  reveal  condi- 
tions they  would  prefer  to  hide.  Human  nature,  like  Nature 
herself,  is  influenced  by  immutable  laws.  Self-interest  is  apt 
to  kill  one's  higher  feelings.  To  fight  the  fight  of  the  op- 
pressed, the  outraged,  the  dead,  too  frequently  forces  one  to 
abandon  a  chosen  career.  Therefore,  the  still  voice  of  a 
timid  conscience  whispers  (in  a  perverted  sense):  "Let  the 
dead  bury  their  dead." 

I  cannot  lay  too  much  stress  on  this  absolute  fact:  that  ^^ 
hospital  managements  deliberately,  wilfully,  and  selfishly 
suppress  evidence  which,  if  presented  to  the  proper  author- 
ities, would  lead  to  the  conviction  of  guilty  attendants,  and 
eventually  to  their  almost  complete  elimination  from  asylums.  / 
Several  instances  of  such  suppression  have  come  to  my^ 
attention  since  my  discharge,  two  of  which  I  shall  now  cite. 
During  the  summer  of  1907,  a  Committee  of  Investigation 
appointed  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey,  un- 
covered, several  months  after  the  commission  of  the  crime, 
the  suppressed  evidence  of  the  murder  of  a  patient  by  at- 
tendants at  the  Trenton  State  Hospital.  On  the  witness- 
stand  the  hospital  official  in  authority  admitted  that  the 
attendants  had  killed  the  patient  and  that  their  only  punish- 
ment had  been  their  prompt  discharge  as  employees.  He 
further  admitted  that  the  "scandal"  had  been  deliberately 
suppressed,  and  that  no  evidence  or  report  of  the  crime  had 
been  submitted  to  the  proper  authorities  as  is,  of  course, 
required  by  law.  So  skilfully  was  this  crime  concealed  that 
even  the  wife  of  the  victim  was  unable  to  learn  the  cause  of 


232  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

her  husband's  death  until  the  investigators  laid  bare  the  facts. 
And  this  same  Committee  of  Investigation  uncovered  an- 
other alleged  and,  to  my  mind,  proved  murder  in  another 
State  Hospital  for  the  Insane  —  at  Morris  Plains,  New  Jer- 
sey. Here,  again,  the  "scandal"  (a  hospital  euphemism  for 
"murder"  and  lesser  crimes)  was  "hushed-up"  or  "white- 
washed." When  it  was  finally  dragged  into  the  light  of 
day,  what  happened?  Those  in  authority,  making  char- 
acteristic use  of  the  ignorance  of  the  pubHc  regarding  such 
matters,  brazenly,  I  think,  denied  in  sweeping  terms,  and 
under  oath,  the  incriminating  evidence  of  supposedly  cred- 
ible witnesses.  If  an  investigation  in  New  Jersey  can  re- 
veal two  unreported  murders  that  occurred  within  a  year  in 
two  State  Hospitals,  how  many  such  crimes  would  be  un- 
earthed should  the  two  hundred  and  twenty-six  public  and 
one  hundred  and  two  private  hospitals  for  the  insane  in  this 
country  be  honestly  investigated  ?  The  probable  figure  is  too 
appalling  to  print. 

Hospital"  managements  (not  only  the  doctors,  but  the 
trustees  as  well)  are  too  often  cowardly  bodies  of  men.  They 
shun  publicity,  and  thereby  sacrifice  the  well-being  of  their 
unfortunate  charges.  If  they  would  act  promptly  and  rig- 
orously when  abuse  is  even  suspected,  they  would  need  have 
no  fear  that  the  public  would  not  support  them.  But,  so 
long  as  they  continue  to  suppress  facts  which  no  good  citizen 
in  the  sane  world  would  dare  or  wish  to  suppress,  just  so 
long  will  they  stand  in  danger  of  being  dragged  into  a  com- 
promising prominence  by  those  reformers  who,  from  time 
to  time,  Hke  Dorothea  Lynde  Dix,  succeed  in  penetrating 
the  mysteries  of  their  exclusive  society.  Nor  can  they  surely 
tell  when  and  where  the  lightning  of  accusation  will  strike. 
And  if,  instead  of  sporadic  lightning,  the  steady  glow  of 
enlightenment  shall  obtain,  present  incompetent  servants  of 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


233 


the  public  will  correct  their  costly  faults,  or  be  forced  to  seek 
employment  in  other  fields  where  their  innate  deficiencies 
will  interfere  with  no  one's  happiness  but  their  own. 


For  bringing  the  facts  to  light  the  method  of  procedure 
would  be  simple.  Let  each  Governor,  or  each  State  Legis- 
lature, appoint  an  irreproachable  Committee  of  Investigation. 
Give  that  Commission  as  much  power  both  to  investigate 
and  to  recommend  legislation  as  was  given  to  the  "Arm- 
strong Committee"  of  the  State  of  New  York,  which,  in  the 
year  1905,  so  effectively  investigated  the  Life  Insurance 
Companies.  There  should  be  no  taint  of  politics  in  such  a 
Commission.  Common  decency  and  the  Golden  Rule 
should  conspire  in  its  appointment  and  in  its  work. 

There  should  be  a  country-wide  clean-up.  Not  only 
should  existing  evils  be  brought  to  light;  but  any  abuses 
found  to  have  existed  during  the  two  or  three  years  preced- 
ing an  investigation  should  be  revealed  and  pubhshed  to  the 
world.  And  the  inmates  must  have  a  fair  hearing  —  a 
thing  they  have  seldom  enjoyed.  I  do  not  advocate  hostile 
investigations.  Nevertheless,  the  whole  truth  should  be 
obtained  regardless  of  whom  it  hits  or  hurts.  The  spirit 
of  improvement,  not  prosecution,  should  control.  Though 
hospital  officials,  and  others  able  to  throw  light  on  the  situa- 
tion, should  be  subjected  to  rigorous  examination,  under 
oath,  investigators  should  strive  to  bring  out  and  empha- 
size facts  which  will  lead  to  a  permanent  improvement  of 
conditions,  rather  than  to  give  undue  prominence  to  the  more 
spectacular  evidence  of  abuses.  Inquiry  into  the  condition 
of  the  patients  themselves  should  be  the  prime  consideration. 
This  line  of  investigation  will  inevitably  lead  to  the  uncov- 
ering —  where  they  exist  —  of  the  lesser  evils  of  careless, 


234  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

extravagant,  or,  in  some  instances,  dishonest  management  of 
funds. 

Inasmuch  as  hospitals  for  the  insane  are  the  closest  of 
"close  corporations,"  it  is  essential  that  the  investigators 
and  the  hospital  officials  (including  Trustees  or  Managers) 
should  meet  with  an  honest  desire  to  improve  conditions 
permanently.  They  should  not  meet,  as  they  have  done  so 
often  in  the  past,  with  the  selfish  desire  to  "white- wash"  and 
thus  fool  the  pubHc  into  beheving  conditions  better  than  they 
are.  Such  reports  of  investigations  as  I  have  read  support 
my  contention  that  members  of  the  medical  staff  of  a  hos- 
pital for  the  insane  are  prone  to  offer  excuses,  rather  than 
give  reasons  for  such  abuses  as  are  disclosed  by  the  examin- 
ing authority.  And  these  excuses  are  usually  so  plausible 
as  to  defeat,  in  many  instances,  the  purposes  of  an  investi- 
gation. For  generations,  doctors  working  among  the  insane 
have  had  to  hide  facts,  until,  finally,  convincing  evasion 
of  fact  has  become  with  them  an  unconscious  art.  I  do 
not  mean  to  say  that  the  officials  in  question  deliberately 
and  habitually  lie  in  order  to  deceive  the  pubUc.  But  I 
do  say  that,  having  for  years  been  forced  by  apathetic  repre- 
sentatives of  the  public  to  work  with  crude  equipment  and 
inadequate  support,  these  men  have  fallen  into  the  weak 
habit  of  looking  at  problems  of  hospital  administration  from 
a  disheartened  and  apologetic  point  of  view.  Given  a  wrong 
point  of  view,  the  rest  has  been  very  simple,  for  so  few  lay- 
men know  what  earnest  and  unremitting  effort  might  ac- 
complish in  this  field  that  the  plausible  and  veiled  excuses 
of  hospital  officials  are  commonly  accepted  as  coin  of  full 
weight. 

Fortunately  the  securing  of  the  whole  truth  does  not  de- 
pend upon  skilful  apologists  —  or  upon  those  whose  standard 
of  truth  has  been  lowered  by  years  of  enforced  shoulder- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  235 

ing  of  the  public's  shortcomings.  In  every  improperly  con- 
ducted institution  there  will  be  found  a  few  attendants,  both 
men  and  women,  who  at  heart  loathe  the  conditions  under 
which  they  are  compelled  to  get  their  livelihood.  These 
would  welcome  an  opportunity  to  tell  the  truth  and  help 
correct  the  evils  which  so  offend  their  better  natures.  The 
only  incentive  they  need  is  a  knowledge  that  the  public  will 
support  them  in  a  course  which,  if  pursued  independently, 
would  probably  be  met  with  incredulity,  and  could  result 
only  in  their  discharge.  It  is  mainly  on  such  a  nucleus  of 
witnesses  that  I  rest  my  complete  confidence  in  the  efficacy 
of  any  honestly  conducted  investigation  —  provided  the 
testimony  adduced  be  given  the  publicity  it  deserves. 

Though  hospital  officials  will  say,  with  tiuth,  that  pub- 
lic investigations  —  impending  or  in  progress  —  seriously 
interfere  with  the  routine  work  of  the  medical  staff,  and 
bring  distress  to  relatives  of  the  inmates  by  arousing,  in 
many  instances,  unwarranted  fears,  these  considerations,  to 
my  mind,  are  of  no  moment  compared  to  the  advantages 
that  will  be  gained  by  treating  a  disgrace  of  heroic  propor- 
tions with  a  remedy  equally  heroic.  In  order  to  effect  last- 
ing reforms  this  whole  subject  must  first  be  brought  home  to 
the  people.  And  nothing  short  of  the  public  investigation 
of  enjery  institution  where  the  insane  are  confined  can  bring 
about  the  desired  result.  The  interest  of  the  people  in  a 
given  territory  can  be  effectively  roused  in  one  way  only,  and 
that  is  by  investigating  the  particular  hospitals  wherein  the 
insane  of  a  given  community  are  confined.  In  this  way, 
provided  every  hospital  for  the  insane,  not  forgetting  the 
private  ones,  be  investigated,  interest  would  be  aroused 
throughout  the  country,  for  few  communities  are  without 
afflicted  representation  in  the  institutions  under  discussion. 
One  word  more.     Investigators  should  begin  and  conclude 


236  A  MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF 

their  labors  with  dispatch.  Let  the  whole  distressing  situa- 
tion be  cleared  up  within  a  few  months  after  the  anticipated 
country-wide  agitation  shall  be  begun.  Te  let  matters  drag 
would  be  an  injustice  to  all  concerned,  —  especially  to  the 
patients  themselves. 

In  conspicuous  instances  the  investigations  will  reveal  a 
satisfactory  state  of  affairs.  Fortunately  there  are  a  num- 
ber of  institutions  managed  by  men  both  honorable  and 
capable.  Such  managements  have  nothing  to  fear.  In 
fact,  they  will  only  receive  that  credit  which  of  right  should 
redound  to  those  who,  in  the  midst  of  unfavorable  conditions, 
and  in  spite  of  a  dormant  public,  have  so  nobly  discharged 
their  duty  to  the  least  safeguarded  of  the  world's  unfortunates. 

With  the  complete  record  of  past  and  present  conditions 
before  the  public,  those  responsible  for  the  evils  exposed 
should  be  offered  one  more  chance  of  service.  This  chari- 
table attitude  should  be  adhered  to,  except  in  those  instances 
where  officials  under  examination  stubbornly  refuse  to  co-op- 
erate with  a  committee  of  investigation,  —  or  where  doctors 
or  attendants  have  been  proved  guilty  of  an  offense  that 
cannot,  in  justice  to  the  patients  and  to  the  public,  be  for- 
given. But,  even  in  such  cases  as  the  latter,  charity  should 
prevail;  and,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  these  guilty  men  are,  in 
a  way,  victims  of  a  vicious  system,  they  should  be  simply 
discharged,  rather  than  branded  forever  as  criminals. 

No  doubt  many  persons,  particularly  politicians  who 
consider  the  success  of  their  respective  parties  of  more  con- 
sequence than  the  comfort  and  happiness  of  a  constituency 
bereft  of  reason  and  the  right  to  vote,  will  feel  that  it  would 
be  a  waste  of  time  to  lay  bare  a  distressing,  perhaps  disgust- 
ing, account  of  brutalities  covering  a  period  that  has  passed. 
If  my  insight  into  a  situation  of  this  kind  is  worth  anything, 
the  public  will  do  well  to  weigh  my  words  before  listening 


A  MIND  THAT   FOUND   ITSELF  237 

to  the  biased  opinions  of  those  who  fear  the  truth.  An 
investigation  covering  a  short  period  would  be  an  injustice 
either  to  the  inmates  of  an  institution  or  to  its  management, 
or,  indeed,  to  both.  A  guihy  management,  anticipating  an 
investigation,  could  and  would  temporarily  correct  all  discov- 
erable abuses.  This  very  thing  has  often  happened,  and 
always  will  happen  so  long  as  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
persists.  Doctors  who  voluntarily  have  never  lifted  a  finger 
to  protect  their  patients  against  abuse  sit  up  nights  to  cor- 
rect abuses  the  moment  an  investigation  becomes  imminent 
—  thus  proving  how  easily  their  vigilance  could  be  perma- 
nently maintained. 

I  shall  cite  a  case  in  point.  I  have  already  made  brief 
mention  of  a  stroke  of  reform  brought  about  in  Kentucky 
through  the  efforts  of  an  ex-attendant.  It  was  during  the 
month  of  September,  1906,  that  I  happened  to  be  traveling  in 
that  State.  As  already  mentioned  I  chanced  to  pick  up  a  copy 
of  the  Louisville  Courier- Journal,  in  which  I  saw  a  heading 
that  caught  my  eye  and  soon  gripped  my  heart.  It  read  as 
follows:  "SAYS  PATIENT  WAS  KILLED  —  Charge 
Publicly  Made  By  Ex- Attendant."  This  "ex-attendant," 
whom  I  now  number  among  my  friends,  was  over  six  feet  in 
height  and  proportionately  powerful.  Because  of  his  great 
strength,  upon  entering  the  hospital  he  was  at  once  assigned 
to  a  so-called  "back  ward."  He  demurred  at  his  assignment, 
preferring  to  work  in  a  ward  where  the  patients  were  com- 
paratively happy.  But  the  doctors  made  their  orders  peremp- 
tory —  much  to  their  later  regret.  For,  in  the  course  of 
his  work,  this  full-blooded  man  saw  sights  which  so  out- 
raged his  manhood  that  he  protested  vehemently  to  the 
authorities.  His  protest  went  unheeded  so  long  as  he  re- 
mained in  the  employ  of  the  State.  At  last,  when  a  helpless 
patient  had  been  killed  by  his  brutal  co-workers,  he  resigned 


238  A  MIND   THAT   FOUND   ITSELF 

and  forced  the  management  to  take  heed  by  bringing  the 
matter  before  the  Governor  of  Kentucky  who  ordered  an 
investigation.  Then,  of  course,  abuses  which  might  incrimi- 
nate were  virtually  corrected  in  a  night.  Brutality  ceased. 
Attendants  who,  on  many  occasions,  had  bathed  in  a  single 
tubful  of  water  as  many  as  fifty  men,  some  of  whom  had 
pestilential  sores  on  their  bodies,  immediately  adopted  a 
more  sanitary  method;  and  whereas,  under  the  old  method, 
the  inmates  of  an  entire  ward  had  been  run  through  a  mass 
of  cumulative  filth  within  two  or  three  hours,  under  the  en- 
forced sanitary  reform  it  took  a  like  corps  of  attendants  — 
if  not  the  same  men  —  the  better  part  of  two  days  to  com- 
plete their  task.^  Does  not  this  wonderful  change  in 
methods  (if  not  change  of  heart)  prove  how  efficacious 
an  aroused  and  outraged  public  opinion  can  really  be? 
I  say,  then,  it  behooves  the  public  to  assume  part  of  the 
burden  of  the  afilicted  and  oppressed  insane  by  compelling 
the  several  managements  to  work  as  well  every  day  in 
the  year  as  they  do  when  an  investigation  impends  or  is 
in  progress. 

One  might  attempt  to  justify  the  retention  of  an  at- 
tendant of  known  brutality  by  saying  cavalierly  that  one 
vicious  attendant  is  as  good  as  another.  This  is  quite 
true,  but  it  does  not  excuse  the  employment  of  any  vicious 
attendants.  Nor  can  a  valid  excuse  for  so  doing  be  devised. 
Acceptable  if  not  model  attendants  can  be  found  if  deter- 

1  These  statements  regarding  improper  methods  of  bathing  —  an  almost 
universal  abuse  in  hospitals  for  the  insane  —  are  based  on  an  affidavit  given 
me  by  the  "ex-attendant"  who  instigated  the  Kentucky  investigation. 
Though  the  aforementioned  abuse  is  vi'idespread,  its  remedy  is  within  easy 
reach.  Let  hospital  managements  abolish  stationary  tubs  entirely  and 
install  in  their  stead  modem  shower  baths  and  the  like.  However,  any  law 
or  rule  governing  this  matter  should  not  be  so  strict  as  to  prevent  the  use  of 
a  tub  in  the  giving  of  the  so-called  "  continuous  bath"  to  excited  patients. 


A  MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  239 

mined  efforts  are  made.  Weakly  taking  for  granted  that 
the  riff-raff  which  drifts  from  one  hospital  to  another  must 
be  accepted,  the  doctors  seldom  think  of  actively  searching 
for  good  material.  Yet,  in  my  opinion,  this  is  one  of  their 
prime  duties.  No  other  detail  of  management  is  more  im- 
portant. The  difficulty  is  not  insurmoimtable.  There  are 
not  a  few  superintendents  who  have  little  trouble  in  secur- 
ing an  adequate  number  of  fairly  competent  attendants,  but 
these  are  usually  the  heads  of  institutions  conducted  on 
Non-Restraint  principles.  This  fact  is  not  surprising.  The 
better  element  among  those  who  seek  employment  as  attend- 
ants, naturally  look  for  it  where  the  patients  are  treated  with 
the  most  consideration;  for  there  the  lot  of  the  attendants 
is  not  only  bearable,  but,  oftentimes,  a  happy  one. 

Brutal  attendants  are  arrant  cowards.  They  would  fear 
to  lose  their  positions  more  than  do  most  classes  of  workers, 
if  they  were  made  to  realize  that  the  slightest  infraction  of 
the  rules  will  insure  immediate  dismissal.  The  trouble  to- 
day is  that  superintendents,  generally,  do  not  enforce  rules 
to  the  point  of  dismissal.  Thus  do  those  in  authority  lose  a 
sure  opportunity  to  frighten  brutal  men  into  at  least  a  sem- 
blance of  merciful  behavior-  Why  employ  brutal  men  at 
all?  the  reader  may  wonder.  As  well  ask:  why  employ 
dishonest  men  as  clerks  and  officers  in  banks.  Evil  forces 
must  ever  be  reckoned  with;  therefore  it  is  incumbent  on 
those  in  authority  to  adopt  a  proper  system  of  espionage, 
the  enforcement  of  which  will  reduce  evils  to  a  minimum. 
There  is  scarcely  a  department  of  the  Federal  Government 
where  just  such  a  system  is  not  now  in  operation.  In  busi- 
ness too  —  especially  its  more  highly  developed  branches  — 
"supervision"  is  a  watchword.  Surely,  if  the  sane  find  it 
necessary  to  watch  those  whose  work  is  carried  on  under  the 
eyes  of  the  sane,  and  in  the  sane  world,  is  it  ,not  more  neces- 


240  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

sary  to  watch  those  thousands  whose  work  is  done  behind 
the  locked  doors  of  asylums?  The  first  step  in  the  enforce- 
ment of  such  a  system  would  be  a  thorough  understanding 
between  the  superintendent  and  attendants  at  the  time  the 
latter  enter  upon  their  duties.  Instead  of  turning  a  new 
attendant  over  to  the  old  attendants  for  training,  as  is  so 
often  done,  those  in  authority  should  themselves  assume 
the  task  of  instruction.  To  be  sure,  a  majority  of  our  super- 
intendents to-day  give  words  of  advice  to  the  newly-hired, 
but  seldom  do  these  preliminary  admonitions  carry  weight. 
Those  in  authority  should  impress  upon  the  mind  of  the 
novice  the  fact  that  his  is  a  responsible  position,  and  that 
he  must  discharge  his  duties  humanely,  or  submit  to  sum- 
mary dismissal;  and  especially  should  male  attendants  be 
so  instructed,  for  few  men  are  wilHng  to  take  the  course  of 
training  which  some  of  our  hospitals  now  offer.  Further- 
more, attendants  —  new  and  old  —  should  be  frankly  in- 
formed that,  from  time  to  time,  under  the  estabhshed  system 
of  espionage,  personal  representatives  of  the  management 
(spies,  if  you  like)  will  find  their  way  into  the  several  wards. 
These  detectives  may  pose  either  as  attendants  or  as  patients 
and  report  to  the  superintendent.  A  consciousness  of  the 
presence  of  sane  eyes  will  prove  salutary. 

Who  then  will  watch  the  superintendent  who  watches  his 
subordinates?  A  fair  question.  Let  the  public  watch  and 
assist  him  through  the  instrumentality  of  a  society,  organized, 
of  course,  for  the  friendly  purpose  of  co-operation  and  not 
with  any  avowed  hostility  toward  hospital  managements.  No 
efiicient  superintendent  ever  resents  a  close  or  even  continued 
inspection  of  his  institution.  And  no  competent  assistant 
physician  or  capable  attendant  would  resent  an  espionage 
which  is  designed  for  the  protection  of  the  helpless.  Such 
continued  supervision,  by  eliminating  the  inefficient,  would 


A  MIND   THAT   FOUND   ITSELF  241 

work  to  the  advantage  of  the  efficient  men  holding  these 
positions,  and  would  in  a  comparatively  short  time  raise  the 
standard  of  treatment  to  a  humane  level. 

If,  also,  attendants  were  made  to  realize  that  a  dishonor- 
able discharge  from  one  institution  would  forever  bar  them 
from  all  others,  they  would  soon  learn  their  lesson.  A  man 
about  to  be  entrusted  with  the  valuables  of  others  is  seldom 
employed  by  a  commercial  institution  without  a  satisfactory 
certificate  of  character.  Can  we  tolerate  less  care  in  the 
employing  of  men  and  women  to  whom  such  a  valuable  as 
a  human  soul  is  to  be  entrusted?  Yet  in  a  majority  of  our 
institutions  to-day  little  care  is  exercised  in  the  selection  of 
help.  Indeed,  hospitals  for  the  insane  seldom  have  a  full 
complement  of  attendants,  and  a  random  applicant  stands 
an  excellent  chance  of  employment.  Hundreds  of  these 
"unknowns"  are  now  lording  it  over  insane  patients. 

It  is  true  that  so-called  black-lists  are  kept  by  groups  of 
hospitals  in  different  sections  of  the  country;  yet  these 
prove  of  little  avail,  inasmuch  as  an  attendant  discharged, 
say,  by  an  institution  in  New  England,  can  go  immediately 
to  another  section  —  the  Middle  States,  for  instance  —  and 
usually  secure  a  position.  Indeed,  by  applying  for  a  posi- 
tion under  a  false  name  and  telling  the  requisite  number  of 
lies  to  complete  the  illusion  of  a  new  identity,  these  dis- 
charged attendants  often  secure  positions  in  hospitals  which 
maintain  for  their  mutual  protection  one  of  these  relatively 
ineffective  black-lists.  I  know  of  instances  of  such  failure  on 
the  part  of  the  existing  system.  A  National  Society,  at 
comparatively  small  expense,  could  establish  and  operate 
a  country-wide  black-list  which  would  effectually  eliminate 
undesirable  workers  from  among  the  ranks  of  hospital 
employees. 

As  a  preliminary  measure  —  and  added  protection  —  I 
17 


242  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

advocate  a  universal  statute  making  it  at  least  a  misdemeanor 
for  any  man  or  woman,  dishonorably  discharged  from  one 
such  institution,  to  accept  a  position  in  another;  and  like- 
wise a  misdemeanor  for  any  doctor  in  authority  in  a  state  or 
private  hospital  to  employ  as  an  attendant  any  man  or  woman 
whose  references  do  not  indicate  a  good  record  and  some  fit- 
ness for  the  work.  A  sworn  statement  on  these  points  from 
each  attendant,  when  engaged  (together  with  his  thumb-print, 
as  a  means  of  identification),  would  protect  the  doctors,  and 
this  statement,  if  untrue,  would  serve  as  a  basis  for  crim- 
inal prosecution.  The  moral  effect  of  such  a  statute  would 
be  such  as  to  render  its  enforcement  seldom  necessary.  Bru- 
tal and  dishonest  attendants  would  thus  be  forced  into  other 
lines  of  work,  in  which  they  might  perhaps  become  useful 
members  of  society,  or,  at  least,  no  longer  a  menace  to  soci- 
ety's defenceless  portion. 


We  must  admit  that  the  problem  of  securing  efi&ciency 
among  attendants  is  not  an  easy  one.  To  make  it  easier 
several  improvements  must  be  made  in  the  lot  of  the  attend- 
ants themselves.  For  one  thing,  the  niggardly  salaries  now 
offered  make  it  extremely  difficult  for  a  management  to  secure 
or  keep  the  right  type.  Competent  men  and  women  can 
earn  two  or  three  times  as  much  in  other  and  more  con- 
genial lines  of  endeavor.  The  average  scale  of  wages  for 
attendants  in  hospitals  for  the  insane  ranges  from  sixteen 
to  twenty-four  dollars  a  month,  with  room  and  board. 
Women  usually  receive  sixteen  or  eighteen  dollars  at  the  be- 
ginning; men  from  eighteen  to  twenty,  though  the  rates  vary 
throughout  the  coimtry.  There  is  a  slight  margin,  too,  for  an 
increase  in  salary,  but  even  the  exceptionally  able  attendants 
seldom    receive  more  than   thirty  dollars  a  month.     This 


A  MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  243 

bespeaks  a  false,  a  vicious  economy.  Not  that  the  average 
attendant  deserves  a  cent  more  than  he  receives;  but  would  it 
not  be  wiser,  more  humane,  and,  in  the  end,  cheaper,  to  offer 
inducements  calculated  to  attract  to  this  neglected  field  of 
service  a  higher  type  of  character  ?  —  nay,  and  keep  him 
there,  for  nothing  is  more  demoralizing  than  the  constant 
changing  that  goes  on  in  the  ranks  of  the  present  attendants. 
To  offer  a  wage  of,  say,  forty,  with  a  maximum  of  fifty 
dollars  a  month,  including  board  and  room,  would,  no 
doubt,  be  a  move  in  the  right  direction. 

However,  such  a  merely  pecuniary  inducement  would 
nor,  of  itself,  accomplish  the  purpose.  Indeed,  alone,  it 
might  defeat  the  purpose.  For,  after  discussing  this  prob- 
lem with  doctors  who  have  employed  attendants,  I  am 
brought  to  the  conclusion  that  increased  wages,  unaccom- 
panied by  increased  and  deserved  privileges,  and  more  whole- 
some and  refined  surroundings,  would  probably  appeal  only 
to  burly  workers  in  rougher  fields.  Wages  high  enough  to 
attract  a  more  refined  type  are,  at  the  present  stage  of 
hospital  development,  out  of  the  question;  whereas  privileges 
and  refining  influences  might  even  now  be  brought  to  bear 
with  excellent  effect.  Model  dormitories,  and  separate  cot- 
tages for  married  employees,  instead  of  mere  sleeping  places, 
shorter  and  less  exhausting  hours,  and  proper  places  in 
which  the  extra  leisure  could  be  enjoyed  —  a  library,  billiard 
room,  etc.,  —  these  would  go  farther  than  money  toward  the 
great  task  of  refinement.  It  is  unfair  to  keep  an  attendant 
on  duty  twelve  or  fifteen  hours  a  day  (these  are  now  the 
common  working  hours)  and  for  the  balance  of  his  time  con- 
fine him  to  his  ward  under  restrictions  nearly  as  irksome  as 
those  to  which  the  patients  themselves  must  perforce  submit. 
A  few  States,  notably  New  York  and  Massachusetts,  have 
granted  appropriations  for  the  creation  of  such  conditions 


244  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

as  I  am  describing.  If  these  appropriations  were  enlarged, 
and  if  other  States  followed  the  same  policy,  it  is  safe  to  pre- 
dict that  thousands  of  refined  men  and  women  would  enter 
this  field  who  are  now  debarred.  And  once  in  the  work  they 
should  be  offered  the  same  chances  for  advancement  as  are 
offered  to  employees  in  any  well  conducted  commercial  es- 
tablishment. Such  a  policy,  carried  to  its  logical  conclusion, 
would  include  also  a  system  of  pensions  for  those  attendants 
who  should  devote  the  better  part  of  their  lives  to  this  noble 
service. 

Still  another  effective  means  of  eliminating  brutality  by 
the  introduction  of  refining  influences  would  consist  in  the 
wider  employment  of  women  nurses  in  men's  wards.  To 
the  uninitiated  this  suggestion  will  no  doubt  seem  ill-advised; 
yet,  at  this  moment,  there  are  in  this  country  —  and  abroad, 
as  well, — some  hospitals  for  the  insane  where  women  nurses, 
assisted,  of  course,  by  orderlies,  as  are  nurses  in  general 
hospitals,  are  managing  men's  wards  with  gratifying  suc- 
cess.* What  is  needed  is  a  general  adoption  of  this  humane 
practice.  Not  all  classes  of  male  patients  can  safely  or 
advantageously  be  placed  in  charge  of  women  nurses;  but 
other  classes  —  the  more  intelligent  and  less  disturbed  — 
comprising  thousands,  can,  if  anything,  be  managed  better 
by  women  of  capacity  than  by  men  of  any  sort.  The  supe- 
rior tact  and  quicker  sympathy  of  women — God-given  qual- 
ities —  work  wonders  among  insane  men  quite  as  readily  as 
in  the  sane  world.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  under  the  pres- 
ent regime  women  nurses  in  charge  of  troublesome  women 
patients  have  not  been  entirely  free  from  charges  of  cruelty; 
indeed,  the  contrary  has  been  proved,  as  the  results  of  inves- 
tigations show  —  but  they  are  far  less  subject  to  this  charge 

*  See  article  on  this  subject  by  Dr.  Charles  P.  Bancroft,  in  American 
Journal  of  Insanity,  Vol.  LXIII,  No.  2,  October,  1906. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  245 

than  men  attendants.  According  to  those  superintendents 
who  have  successfully  placed  women  nurses  in  charge  of 
men's  wards,  thousands  of  male  patients  who  now  suffer  at 
the  hands  of  unfeeling  and  incompetent  male  attendants 
could  be  brought  under  remedial  and  uplifting  influences 
simply  by  having  women  placed  over  them  in  positions  of 
authority.  And  the  salutary  influence  of  women  in  wards 
where  they  are  available  would  have  a  tendency,  as  ex- 
perience has  demonstrated,  to  spread  throughout  all  other 
wards  where  their  immediate  presence  is  impracticable  or 
unsafe.  It  would  therefore  seem  desirable  to  substitute 
female  for  male  nurses  wherever  possible. 

Such  a  course,  too,  would  further  simplify  the  problem  of 
securing  an  adequate  number  of  attendants.  The  services 
of  women  are  easier  to  secure,  and  women  readily  take  up 
nursing  as  a  profession — as  a  life-work;  whereas  men  natu- 
rally look  upon  such  work  simply  as  a  means  of  providing  a 
livelihood  until  they  can  secure  work  more  to  their  liking. 

There  are  in  this  country  about  twenty  thousand  men  and 
women  working  as  attendants  in  our  asylums  and  hospitals 
for  the  insane.  Of  this  number  several  thousand  are,  with- 
out doubt,  individuals  of  refinement.  Now,  if  a  few  thou- 
sand persons  of  refinement  can  work  under  such  conditions 
as  obtain  so  generally  to-day  in  our  hospitals  and  asylums, 
is  it  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  improved  conditions 
would  eventually  attract  a  full  complement  of  workers  of 
the  same  type?  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  many  attendants 
now  so  employed,  enjoy  their  work  and  would  not  of  their 
own  choice  relinquish  it.  And  I  make  bold  to  appeal  to 
those  grinding  thousands  now  eking  out  a  livelihood  in  work 
apparently  more  attractive,  but,  in  truth,  less  endurable,  to 
seek  improved  conditions  and  increased  usefulness  in  those 
hospitals  where  the  application  of  the  Golden  Rule  to  insan- 


246    •  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

ity  is  now  possible.  In  such  places  a  feeling  of  security  and 
interest  soon  overcomes  the  instinctive  timidity  or  repugnance 
felt  by  many  when,  in  the  capacity  of  attendants,  they 
first  come  in  contact  with  the  insane.  Such  contact,  bar- 
ring exceptional  cases  influenced  by  a  too  impressionable 
temperament  on  the  part  of  the  nurse,  renders  one,  as  it  were, 
immune.  It  would  surprise  (perhaps  annoy)  many  sane 
persons,  were  they  to  realize  how  slightly  many  of  the  inmates 
of  asylums  differ  from  their  more  fortunate  brothers  at  large. 
Yet  among  those  who  have  been  brought  into  close  contact 
with  the  insane  this  is  a  trite  observation;  and  it  is  the  key  to 
the  problem  which  causes  so  many  to  wonder  how  and  why 
it  is  that  men  and  women,  at  liberty  to  choose  their  voca- 
tions, deliberately  cast  their  lot  with  that  portion  of 
humanity  which  the  average  person  seems  so  willing  to 
shun. 


XXX 

But  the  problem  of  attendants  is  not  the  only  pressing 
one.  Any  alienist  will  agree,  that  the  cure  of  the  insane 
depends  upon  their  care,  and  that  to  this  end  a  proper 
classification  is  necessary.  This  can  be  accomplished  only 
when  the  curable  cases  can  be  given  individual  attention. 
The  manifestations  of  insanity  vary  with  the  original  tem- 
peraments of  those  afflicted.  Collective  treatment  is  now 
the  rule;  but  not  until  individual  treatment  prevails  will 
the  ratio  of  recoveries  begin  to  move  toward  that  inspiring 
figure  which  due  progress  in  the  care  of  the  insane  must  even- 
tually show.  For  the  moment  each  patient  receives  the  care 
which  is  his  rightful  portion,  all  abuses  complained  of  will 
be  doomed.     Such  care  will  kill  cruelty  at  its  source. 

In  the  general  hospital  there  are  wards  set  apart  for  the 
treatment  of  certain  diseases.  Does  any  one  believe  that 
twenty  patients,  ill  with  typhoid  fever,  should,  for  an  indefi- 
nite period,  be  given  the  same  kind  of  medicine  and  the  same 
kind  of  food  at  the  same  hour  each  day?  Such  treatment 
would  result  in  the  death  of  many  who,  with  individual 
treatment,  would  recover.  Yet,  in  a  single  ward  in  a  hos- 
pital for  the  insane,  twenty,  thirty,  forty,  sometimes  sixty, 
sometimes  more  than  sixty  patients,  each  in  a  different  state 
of  physical  and  mental  health,  are  forced  to  submit  to  a  uni- 
form mode  of  living  which,  in  a  majority  of  cases,  is  not 
at  all  conducive  to  their  well-being.  In  many  instances 
this  machme-like  existence  has  been  the  death  of  patients 
who  might  have  been  restored  to  health  had  they  been  given 
exercise  and  diversion,  and  food  of  a  quality  and  variety 

247 


248  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

calculated  to  tempt  their  jaded  appetites.^  It  is  trite  to  ob- 
serve that  mental  health  depends  largely  upon  bodily  health. 
Since  this  is  so,  hospital  managements  might  think  less  of 
administering  drugs,  and  what  amounts  to  punishment,  and 
more  about  providing  a  suitable  diet,  exercise,  and  proper 
application  of  what  mind  remains,  for  those  whose  condition 
so  clearly  demands  these  requisites  of  intelligent  treatment. 
The  total  cost  would  be  less.  Instead  of  feeding  and  caring 
for,  year  in  and  year  out,  the  once  curable  cases  become 
chronic,  the  State  might  better  spend  more  money  for  a 
shorter  period,  restore  the  sick  to  health,  and  convert  a 
burden  into  a  joy. 

There  are  doctors  in  our  State  Hospitals  who  will  tell  you 
that  to  treat  certain  cases  on  their  merits  will  demoralize 
those  patients  whose  condition  is  such  that  individual  treat- 
ment seems  unnecessary  or  hopeless.  As  most  asylums  are 
now  conducted,  the  individual  treatment  of  the  few  might 
arouse  a  feeling  of  discontent  among  those  denied  special 
privileges.  But  would  any  such  demoralization  ensue  if  each 
patient  was  treated  with  that  consideration  he  so  richly 
deserves  ?  I  know  that  it  would  not.  When  one  patient  sees 
a  fellow-patient  allowed  more  liberty,  or  perhaps  granted  a 
more  inviting  diet  than  himself,  it  is  not  so  much  a  feeling  of 
jealousy  or  envy  that  seizes  him  —  in  his  heart  he  is  glad  that 
some  one  of  his  kind  is  given  pleasure.  What  he  rebels 
against  is  the  fact  that  he  himself  is  denied,  not  special  priv- 
ileges, but  those  ordinary  benefits  which  in  any  hospital 
deserving  of  the  name  would  be  his  without  the  asking. 

1  As  chances  of  recovery  never  cease  to  exist,  and  as  statistics  show  that 
twenty  out  of  each  hundred  who  recover,  do  so  after  one  or  more  years  of 
confinement,  the  standard  of  care  for  even  the  so-called  chronic  cases  can 
never  be  lowered  without  robbing  some  patients  of  their  rightful  chance  of 
rescue.  Apparently  hopeless  cases  which  recover  after  ten,  fifteen,  or  twenty 
years  of  absolute  insanity  are  by  no  means  rare,  as  can  be  proved  by  a 
study  of  hospital  records. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  249 

Another  objection  which  the  management  of  a  state  hos- 
pital sometimes  makes  to  the  plea  for  individual  treatment 
is  that  under  the  law  one  patient  is  as  deserving  as  another, 
and  that  the  granting  of  privileges,  favors,  etc.,  to  the  com- 
paratively few  curable  cases  cannot  be  accomplished  with- 
out working  an  injustice  to  the  many  whose  condition  does 
not  demand  exceptional  care.  The  glib  way  in  which  those 
in  authority  in  a  state  hospital  prate  about  justice  would 
bring  a  smile  to  the  face  of  the  shy  goddess  who  perhaps  pre- 
sides over  that  virtue.  These  expounders  of  Equal  Rights 
for  All  will  refuse  to  alter  a  general  and  mechanical  course 
of  treatment  which  is  admittedly  crude  and  unproductive  of 
good  results ;  yet  these  very  men  seem  willing  to  discriminate 
between  patients  so  long  as  the  discrimination  leads  not  to 
exceptional  privileges  but  to  exceptional  privations. 

Though  those  in  authority  are  deserving  of  considerable 
criticism  there  are  many  reasons  why  they  should  be  treated 
with  all  charity.  If  we  are  to  demand  that  doctors  treat  each 
patient  as  though  he  were  the  only  one  in  the  world,  we 
must,  through  the  several  State  Legislatures,  provide  funds 
for  the  proper  equipment  and  manning  of  our  institutions. 
To-day  there  are  few  institutions  where  the  doctors  in  charge 
have  not  under  their  care  a  greater  number  of  patients  than 
can  be  properly  treated.  Nor  are  there  many  institutions 
regularly  provided  with  an  adequate  corps  of  attendants. 
Indeed,  if  the  United  States  Government  were  to  send  into 
an  engagement  a  battleship  as  poorly  manned  as  are  our 
asylums,  the  people  would  rise  in  their  indignation  and  de- 
mand that  the  honor  of  the  Nation  be  given  into  other  keep- 
ing. To  my,  perhaps  prejudiced,  mind,  the  honor  of  this 
Nation  is  open  to  attack  so  long  as  the  States  force,  or 
permit,  great  institutions  to  proceed  in  their  work  with  de- 
fective equipment  or  an  inadequate  complement  of  workers. 


XXXI 

But  more  fundamental  than  espionage,  and  more  funda- 
mental than  individual  as  opposed  to  collective  treatment, 
is  the  need  of  a  changed  spiritual  attitude  toward  the  insane. 
They  are  still  human :  they  love  and  hate,  and  have  a  sense 
of  humor.  The  worst  are  usually  responsive  to  kindness. 
In  not  a  few  cases  their  gratitude  is  livelier  than  that  of  nor- 
mal men  and  women.  Any  person  who  has  worked  among 
the  insane,  and  done  his  duty  by  them,  can  testify  to  cases 
in  point,  and  even  casual  observers  have  noted  the  fact  that 
the  insane  are  oftentimes  appreciative.  Consider  the  ex- 
perience of  Thackeray,  as  related  by  himself  in  "Vanity 
Fair"  (Chapter  LVII).  "I  recollect,"  he  writes,  "seeing, 
years  ago,  at  the  prison  for  idiots  and  madmen,  at  Bic^tre, 
near  Paris,  a  poor  wretch  bent  down  under  the  bondage  of 
his  imprisonment  and  his  personal  infirmity,  to  whom  one 
of  our  party  gave  a  halfpennyworth  of  snuff  in  a  cornet  or 
'screw'  of  paper.  The  kindness  was  too  much  for  the  poor 
epileptic  creature.  He  cried  in  an  anguish  of  delight  and 
gratitude;  if  anybody  gave  you  and  me  a  thousand  a  year, 
or  saved  our  lives,  we  could  not  be  so  affected." 

A  striking  exhibition  of  fine  feeling  on  the  part  of  an  in- 
mate of  an  asylum  was  brought  to  my  attention  by  an  assist- 
ant physician  whom  I  met  while  inspecting  a  certain  State 
Hospital  in  Massachusetts.  It  seems  that  the  patient  in 
question  —  a  woman  —  while  at  her  worst  had  caused  an 
endless  amount  of  annoyance  by  indulging  in  mischievous 

250 


A  MmD  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  251 

acts  which  seemed  to  verge  on  the  malicious.  Judged  by 
her  conduct  at  that  time  no  observer  would  have  credited 
her  with  the  exquisite  sensibility  she  so  signally  displayed 
when  she  had  become  convalescent  and  was  granted  a 
parole  which  permitted  her  to  walk  at  will  about  the 
hospital  grounds.  After  one  of  these  walks,  taken  in 
the  early  spring,  she  rushed  up  to  my  informant  and,  with 
childlike  simplicity,  told  him  of  the  thrill  of  delight  she 
had  experienced  in  discovering  the  first  flower  of  the  year 
in  full  bloom  —  a  dandelion,  which,  with  characteristic 
audacity,  had  risked  its  life  by  braving  the  elements  of  an 
uncertain  season. 

"Did  you  pick  it?"  asked  the  doctor. 

"I  stooped  to  do  so,"  said  the  patient;  ''then  I  thought 
of  the  pleasure  the  sight  of  it  had  given  me  —  so  I  left  it, 
hoping  that  some  one  else  would  discover  it  and  enjoy  its 
beauty  as  I  did." 

Thus  it  was  that  a  woman,  while  still  insane,  unconsciously 
exhibited  perhaps  finer  feeling  than  did  Ruskin,  Tennyson, 
and  Patmore,  on  an  occasion  the  occurrence  of  which  is 
vouched  for  by  Mr.  Julian  Hawthorne.  These  three  masters, 
out  for  a  walk  one  chilly  afternoon  in  late  autumn,  discovered 
a  belated  violet  bravely  putting  forth  from  the  shelter  of  a 
mossy  stone.  Not  until  these  worthies  had  got  down  on  all 
fours  and  done  ceremonious  homage  to  the  flower,  did  they 
resume  their  walk.  Suddenly  Ruskin  halted,  and,  planting 
his  cane  in  the  ground,  exclaimed,  "I  don't  believe,  Alfred, 
—  Coventry,  I  don't  believe  that  there  are  in  all  England 
three  men  besides  ourselves  who,  after  finding  a  violet  at 
this  time  of  year,  would  have  had  forbearance  and  fine  feel- 
ing enough  to  refrain  from  plucking  it." 

The  reader  may  judge  whether  the  imconscious  display 
of  feeling  by  the  inmate  of  an  asylum  was  not  finer  than 


252  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

the  self-conscious  raptures  of  these  three  wise  men  and 
sane. 


Is  it  not  then  an  atrocious  anomaly  that  the  treatment 
often  meted  out  to  an  insane  person  is  the  very  treatment 
which  would  deprive  a  sane  person  of  his  normal  capacity  ?  w^ 
"The  victim  must  right  his  reason  in  an  atmosphere  of  un- 
reason. He  must  check  his  own  delusions  with  the  delu- 
sions of  others  as  mad  as  himself;  and  he  must  submit  to  a 
variety  of  abuses  as  cruel  as  they  are  unnecessary.  That 
so  many  insane  persons  recover  their  reason  under  ad- 
verse conditions  is  pretty  good  proof  that  insanity,  though 
prevalent,  can  never  become  preponderant.  Miners  who 
penetrate  the  mountain  fastnesses  frequently  become  men- 
tally unbalanced  as  a  result  of  prolonged  loneliness;  and 
their  knowledge  that  they  imperil  their  reason  by  living 
in  solitude,  and  their  willingness  to  take  the  risk,  are 
qualifications  for  the  work.  But  one  and  all  they  hasten 
to  return  to  civilization  the  moment  they  find  themselves 
beginning  to  be  slightly  affected  with  hallucinations.  Delay 
means  death.  Contact  with  sane  people,  if  not  tooj^g 
delayed,  means  an  almost  immediate  restoration  to  npr- 
nmlity.  This  iT  an  illuminating  fact.  For,  n  contact 
with  the  sane  world  can  restore  the  threatened  reason  of 
these  miners,  why  cannot  the  minds  of  the  inmates  of 
our  asylums  be  at  least  strengthened  by  contact  with 
sound  minds?  Inasmuch  as  insane  patients  cannot  be 
set  free,  it  is  the  duty  of  those  in  authority  to  treat  them 
with  as  great  a  degree  of  sane  consideration  as  possible. 
Instead  of  discouraging  and  abusing  those  curable  patients 
who  exhibit  flashes  of  sanity,  why  not,  on  the  contrary, 
single  them  out  and  encourage  them  in  the  direction  of  right 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  253 

thinking  ?  In  my  own  case  I  know  that  my  degree  of  sanity 
varied  with  the  sanity  of  the  treatment  accorded  me.  I  can 
recall  one  wholesome  interview  which  I  had  with  my  con- 
servator and  a  friend.  It  eliminated  more  insane  notions 
from  my  mind  than  all  the  hours  of  talk  I  had  previously 
had  with  doctors  and  attendants.  These  two  men  —  my  con- 
servator and  my  friend  —  in  a  spirit  of  tolerance  and  friend- 
liness pointed  out  the  impracticability  of  some  of  my  wild 
schemes,  and  their  arguments  were  so  convincing  that  I  soon 
accepted  them  and  saw  the  absurdity  of  my  own  delusions. 
Such  arguments  would  of  course  be  without  effect  at  certain 
stages,  but,  during  a  period  which  seems  to  point  toward  nor- 
mality, friendly  advice  will  without  question  hasten  recovery. 
Not  a  few  of  the  inmates  of  our  asylums,  if  they  enjoyed 
this  individual  and  humane  treatment,  directed  primarily 
toward  their  own  interests,  might  to-day  be  set  free.  And 
many  others  not  quite  fit  for  absolute  freedom  might  well  be 
set  free  on  parole.  I  firmly  believe  that  the  public  should  be 
protected  against  the  insane,  and  the  insane  against  them- 
selves; but  I  see  no  reason  why  society,  which  so  little  heeds 
its  most  unfortunate  portion,  is  deserving  of  an  excessive  de- 
gree of  protection  at  the  expense  of  recovered  patients  who 
have  already  endured  unnecessary  suffering  because  of  the 
public's  neglect.  Society  would  not  be  likely  to  suffer  any 
more  than  it  suffers  already  because  of  the  continued  free- 
dom of  hundreds  of  so-called  "queer"  people  who  would 
have  a  poor  chance  of  ever  regaining  their  freedom  were 
they  once  legally  deprived  of  it.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
any  considerable  number  of  the  present  inmates  of  our  asy- 
lums and  hospitals  have  been  illegally  committed,  or  that  they 
are  wittingly  held  longer  than  seems  necessary.  But  innocent 
men  have  been  condemned  and  hanged,  and  it  stands  to 
reason  that  an  undeterminable  number  of  persons  out  of  the 


,254  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

two  hundred  thousand  mental  incompetents  in  this  country, 
have  been  unjustly  and,  in  some  cases,  maliciously  branded  as 
insane  when  they  did  not  deserve  that  infliction.  So  long 
as  the  human  equation  enters  into  the  problem,  such  errors 
—  or  crimes — cannot  possibly  be  completely  guarded  against. 
That  the  unwarranted  commitment  of  a  person  to  a  hos- 
pital for  the  insane  is  a  tragic  miscarriage  of  justice,  all  will 
admit.  It  therefore  follows  that  the  holding  of  a  patient  for 
an  unwarranted  length  of  time  after  commitment  is  also  an 
injustice  —  likewise  tragic.  Yet  many  patients  are  deprived 
of  their  liberty  longer  than  necessary.  This  fact,  however, 
is  seldom  the  fault  of  the  doctors  in  charge  of  them,  except, 
perhaps,  in  private,  run-for-gain  institutions.  As  a  rule 
public  hospital  officials  are  more  than  willing  to  discharge 
any  patient  fit  for  freedom  —  if  for  no  other  reason,  to  re- 
lieve the  overcrowded  condition  which  obtains  in  a  majority 
of  public  institutions.  It  is  the  indifference  —  or  even  hos- 
tility—  of  a  patient's  relatives  which  most  often  forces  an 
asylum  management  to  hold  him  for  weeks  or  months  — 
sometimes  years  —  after  he  has  demonstrated  his  fitness  for, 
at  least,  a  large  degree  of  freedom.  Rather  than  force  a 
J  patient  out  into  a  world  which,  at  best,  is  cold,  the  doctors 
^~  will  detain  him  until  he  is  truly  able  to  shift  for  himself.  Rel- 
atives, who  are  contributing  to  their  own  selfish  comfort  by 
leaving  the  care  of  their  unfortunates  to  the  State,  should 
pause  and  try  to  view  Hfe  from  behind  asylum  bars. 

So  much  for  those  luckless  patients  whose  relatives  or 
friends  fail  to  do  their  whole  duty  by  them.  But  what  of 
those  inmates  —  and  there  are  hundreds  of  them  discharged 
each  year  in  this  country  —  what  of  those  who  have  no  rel- 
atives or  friends  at  all,  either  to  help  or  to  hinder  them  when 
their  liberation  is  about  to  occur?  In  behalf  of  this  class  I 
wish  to  call  attention  to  a  work,  only  recently  inaugurated  in 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  255 

this  country,  though  long  since  practiced  abroad,  which  is 
deserving  of  support  and  of  general  adoption.  I  refer  to 
the  "After  Care  of  the  Insane."  Thanks  to  the  initiative 
of  Miss  Louisa  Lee  Schuyler  of  New  York,  the  State  Char- 
ities Aid  Association  of  that  city  has  brought  to  a  working 
perfection  several  so-called  "  Afto;_Care_Committees.''  These 
are  composed  of  earnest  men  and  women  who  lend  assist- 
ance to  needy  and  friendless  patients  about  to  re-enter  the 
sane  world.  Four  hospitals  in  New  York  State  are  now 
provided  with  the  co-operation  of  such  committees,  and  be- 
fore a  great  while  presumably  every  hospital  for  the  insane 
in  that  State  will  be  likewise  provided.  No  institution  of 
the  character  discussed  should  be  without  this  provision,  for 
it  is  just  such  outside  assistance  that  is  required,  if  all  pa- 
tients deserving  of  discharge  are  to  secure  their  freedom  the 
moment  they  are  ready  for  it. 

Realizing  that  my  detailed  account  of  abuses  may  disturb 
relatives  and  friends  of  the  inmates  of  our  hospitals  for  the 
insane,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  express  again  my  belief  that  most 
insane  persons  are  better  off  in  an  institution  than  out  of  one. 
Only  a  comparatively  small,  though  undeterminable,  pro- 
portion of  the  two  hundred  thousand  inmates  of  our  hospitals, 
asylums  and  sanatoriums  are  subjected  to  the  worst  of  the 
abuses  laid  bare  and  discussed  in  this  book.  This  is  at  least 
reassuring;  for  investigation  and  reform  must  soon  remedy  the 
evils  complained  of;  and  country- wide  investigation,  if  it  does 
nothing  else,  will  protect  insane  patients  against  abuse  as  they 
never  before  have  been  protected.  Then,  before  the  wave 
of  reform  shall  have  lost  its  force,  a  National  Society  can  take 
hold  and  help,  or,  if  necessary,  force  all  hospital  manage- 
ments to  maintain  the  highest  attainable  standard.  Abuse 
and  injustice  will  then  become  as  myths;  —  and,  at  last, 
the  insane  will  come  into  their  own. 


PART   III 


XXXII 

Such  convictions  as  the  foregoing  —  or  some  of  them,  and 
the  germs  of  the  rest  —  I  carried  with  me  into  the  world. 

For  the  first  month  of  regained  freedom  I  remained  at 
home.  These  weeks  were  interesting.  Scarcely  a  day 
passed  that  I  did  not  meet  several  former  friends  and 
acquaintances  who  greeted  me  as  one  risen  from  the  dead. 
And  well  they  might,  for  my  three-year  trip  among  the 
worlds  —  rather  than  around  the  world  —  was  suggestive 
of  complete  separation  from  the  every-day  life  of  the  multi- 
tude. One  profound  impression  which  I  received  at  this 
time  was  of  the  uniform  delicacy  of  feeling  exhibited  by  my 
well-wishers.  In  no  instance  that  I  can  recall  was  a  direct 
reference  made  to  the  nature  of  my  recent  illness,  until  I  had 
first  made  some  remark  which  indicated  that  I  was  not 
averse  to  discussing  it.  There  was  an  evident  effort  on  the 
part  of  friends  and  acquaintances  to  avoid  a  subject  which 
they  naturally  supposed  I  wished  to  forget.  Knowing  that 
their  studied  avoidance  of  a  delicate  subject  was  inspired  by 
a  thoughtful  consideration,  rather  than  a  lack  of  interest,  I 
invariably  forced  the  conversation  along  a  line  calculated  to 
satisfy  a  suppressed  but  perfectly  proper  curiosity  which  I 
seldom  failed  to  detect.  My  decision  to  stand  on  my  past 
and  look  the  future  in  the  face  has,  I  believe,  contributed 
much  to  my  own  happiness,  and,  more  than  anything  else, 
enabled  my  friends  to  view  my  past  as  I  myself  do.  By 
frankly  referring  to  my  experiences  I  put  my  friends  and 

256 


A  MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  257 

acquaintances  at  ease,  and  at  a  stroke  rid  them  of  that 
constraint  which  one  must  feel  in  the  presence  of  a  person 
constantly  in  danger  of  being  hurt  by  a  chance  reference  to 
an  unhappy  experience. 

I  have  said  much  about  the  obligation  of  the  sane  in  refer- 
ence to  easing  the  burdens  of  those  committed  to  our  asylums. 
I  might  say  almost  as  much  about  the  attitude  of  the  public 
toward  those  who  survive  such  a  period  of  exile,  restored, 
but  branded  with  a  suspicion  which  only  time  can  efface. 
Though  an  ex-inmate  of  an  asylum  receives  personal  con- 
sideration, he  finds  it  unduly  difficult  to  obtain  employment. 
No  fair-minded  man  can  find  fault  with  this  condition  of 
affairs,  for  an  inbred  horror  of  insanity  breeds  distrust  of  one 
who  has  been  insane.  Nevertheless,  this  attitude  is  a  mis- 
taken one.  Perhaps  one  reason  for  this  lack  of  confidence 
in  an  ex-inmate  is  to  be  found  in  the  lack  of  confidence  which 
such  a  person  often  feels  in  himself.  Confidence  begets 
confidence,  and  those  men  and  women  who  survive  mental 
illness  should  attack  their  problem  as  though  their  absence 
had  been  occasioned  by  any  one  of  the  many  circumstances 
which  may  interrupt  the  career  of  a  person  whose  mind  has 
never  been  other  than  sound.  I  can  testify  to  the  efficacy 
of  this  course,  for  it  is  the  one  I  pursued.  And  I  think  that 
I  have  thus  far  met  with  as  great  a  degree  of  success  as  I 
might  reasonably  have  expected  to  attain  had  my  career 
never  been  all  but  fatally  interrupted. 

Discharged  from  the  asylum  in  September,  1903,  late  in 
October  of  that  same  year  I  went  to  New  York.  Primarily 
my  purpose  was  to  study  art.  I  even  went  so  far  as  to 
gather  information  regarding  the  several  schools;  and,  had 
not  my  artistic  ambition  taken  wing,  I  might  have  worked 
for  recognition  in  a  field  where  so  many  strive  in  vain.  But 
my  business  instinct,  revivified  by  the  commercially  sur- 
18 


258  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

charged  atmosphere  of  New  York,  soon  gained  sway,  and, 
within  three  months  I  had  secured  a  position  with  the  same 
firm  for  which  I  had  worked  when  I  first  went  to  New  York 
—  six  years  earlier.  It  was  by  the  merest  chance  that 
I  made  this  most  fortunate  connection,  which  has  continued 
ever  since.  By  no  stretch  of  my  rather  elastic  imagination 
can  I  even  now  picture  a  situation  that  would,  at  one  and 
the  same  time,  have  so  perfectly  afforded  a  means  of  liveli- 
hood, leisure  in  which  to  indulge  my  longing  to  write,  and 
an  opportunity  to  further  my  humanitarian  projects. 

Though  persons  discharged  from  our  asylums  are  usually 
able  to  secure,  without  much  difficulty,  work  as  unskilled 
laborers,  or  positions  where  the  responsibility  is  slight,  it  is 
often  next  to  impossible  for  them  to  secure  positions  of  trust. 
That  I  did  secure  such  a  position  naturally  arouses  within  me 
a  lively  sense  of  gratitude  toward  the  members  of  that  firm 
which  helped  me  to  lift  myself  over  as  rough  a  spot  on  life's 
road  as  one  may  expect  to  fall  upon.  And  what  pleases  me 
to-day,  and  pleased  me  then,  is  that  the  two  men  who  com- 
prise the  firm  in  question  did  not  employ  me  solely  because 
of  a  desire  to  help  me  when  I  so  much  needed  help.  Knowing 
my  past,  they  yet  engaged  my  services  because  they  thought 
they  saw  in  me  certain  qualifications  for  the  proposed  work. 
During  the  negotiations  which  led  to  the  engagement  I  was 
in  no  suppliant  mood.  If  anything,  I  was  quite  the  reverse ; 
and,  as  I  have  since  learned,  I  imposed  terms  with  an  assur- 
ance so  sublime  that  any  less  degree  of  audacity  would  have 
put  an  end  to  the  negotiations  then  and  there.  But  the  man 
with  whom  I  was  dealing  was  not  only  broad-minded,  he 
was  sagacious.  He  recognized  immediately  such  an  ability 
to  take  care  of  myself  as  argued  an  ability  to  protect  the  in- 
terests of  the  firm  in  the  particular  line  of  work  he  had  in 
mind.     But  this  alone  would  not  have  induced  the  average 


A  MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  259 

business  man  to  employ  me  under  the  circumstances.  It 
was  the  common-sense  view  of  insanity  on  the  part  of  my  em- 
ployer which  determined  the  issue.  This  view  which  is, 
indeed,  exceptional  to-day,  will  one  day  (within  a  few  genera- 
tions, I  beheve)  be  too  commonplace  to  deserve  special  men- 
tion. As  this  man  tersely  expressed  it:  "When  an  employee 
is  ill,  he's  ill,  and  it  makes  no  difference  to  me  whether  he 
goes  to  a  general  hospital  or  an  asylimi.  Should  you  ever 
find  yourself  in  need  of  treatment  or  rest  I  want  you  to  feel 
that  you  can  take  it  when  and  where  you  please,  and  work  for 
us  when  you  are  able."  When  a  majority  of  men  attain  to 
this  advanced  view,  insanity  will  take  its  proper  place  with 
other  ills  which  flesh  is  heir  to.  Of  course,  I  do  not  deny 
that  one  employing  an  ex-inmate  of  an  asylum  must  care- 
fully judge  his  capacity  and  assign  him  to  work  for  which 
he  is  fitted. 

Strangely  enough,  that  "missionary  spirit"  (if  you  will) 
which  now  impels  me  to  try  to  spread  the  principles  of  Non- 
Restraint  has  been  nurtured  and  strengthened  by  the  daily 
discharge  of  those  business  obligations  which  (if  I  may  be 
pardoned)  I  shall  now  briefly  describe.  What  my  employers 
asked  me  to  do  was  to  introduce  over  a  large  territory  a  cer- 
tain business  principle,  which,  if  universally  adopted,  would 
revolutionize  a  great  industry.  For  three  years  I  have  gone 
from  State  to  State  —  from  Maine  to  New  Mexico  —  pre- 
senting and  explaining  a  special  form  of  contract  under 
which,  for  an  agreed  amoimt  and  without  "extras,"  certain 
types  of  buildings  may  be  erected,  from  plans  to  completion, 
and  delivered  to  the  purchaser,  ready  for  occupancy.  The 
purchaser,  or  owner,  deals  directly  with  but  one  firm,  which 
acts  as  owner  pro  tern,  and  guarantees  a  satisfactory  result. 
Those  who  have  erected  buildings  under  the  usual  method, 
namely,  that  of  placing  the  entire  operation  in  the  hands  of 


26o  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

an  architect,  who  in  turn,  in  the  name  of  the  owner,  lets 
out  the  work  to  several  contractors  for  competitive  bidding, 
will  at  once  grasp  the  significance  of  this  revolutionizing 
method. 

The  presentation  of  so  unique  a  contract  requires  a  degree 
of  persuasiveness  and  audacity.  Though  I  have  not  met 
with  an  unusual  degree  of  success,  I  have  secured  a  sufficient 
nimiber  of  contracts  to  warrant  my  being  kept  on  the  Hst 
of  employees  of  the  firm  which  had  the  courage  to  send  me 
abroad  in  the  land  as  its  representative.  My  business  mis- 
sionary work  has  been  done  among  bankers  in  three  hundred 
cities  and  towns.  Contact  with  two  or  three  thousand  such 
men  in  the  North,  East,  South,  and  Southwest  has,  in  every 
way,  been  beneficial  to  me.  Not  only  have  I  talked  with 
them.  I  have  talked  "at"  them,  endeavoring  to  convert  them 
from  an  old  and  imsatisfactory  method  to  a  new  and  prac- 
tical one.  Many  a  time  have  I  smiled  inwardly  when  I 
found  myself  thus  addressing  a  Board  of  Directors,  or 
Building  Committee,  about  to  let  a  contract  for  a  new 
building  or  the  remodeling  of  an  old  banking  room. 
For,  at  such  times  my  memory  invariably  presents  two 
pictures  of  similar  (but  how  different !)  scenes  —  one,  that 
of  my  appearance  before  a  clinic  of  Yale  medical  stu- 
dents, held  at  the  State  Hospital  while  I  was  possessed  of 
a  remarkably  complete  collection  of  delusions  of  grandeur 
which  I  willingly,  yes,  eagerly,  laid  on  the  Altar  of  Science. 
The  other,  that  in  which  I  appeared  before  the  Medical  Staff 
at  the  same  hospital,  prior  to  my  discharge.  These 
two  occasions  marked  my  first  attempts  at  speech-making. 
My  next  talk  of  sufficient  length  to  be  called  a  speech  was 
delivered  before  a  Board  of  Directors.  After  listening  to  me 
they  signed  a  contract  for  a  sixty-thousand-dollar  building. 
Aside  from  the  preliminary  nerve-racking  hiatus  which  invari- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  261 

ably  precedes  a  speech,  I  found  it  easy  to  monopolize  the 
attention  of  my  listeners.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the 
training  I  received  in  an  institution  not  commonly  classed  as 
one  of  learning  proved  to  be  of  decided  utility. 

Dealing  almost  exclusively  with  bankers  —  those  hard- 
worked  men  of  seemingly  easy  hours  —  I  have  enjoyed  al- 
most as  much  leisure  for  reading  and  trying  to  learn  how  to 
write  as  I  should  have  enjoyed  had  I  had  an  assured  income 
that  would  have  enabled  me  to  devote  my  entire  time  to 
these  pursuits.  And  so  congenial  has  my  work  proved,  and 
so  many  places  of  interest  have  I  visited,  that  I  might  rather 
be  classed  as  a  "commercial  tourist"  than  as  a  commercial 
traveler.  To  view  almost  all  of  the  natural  wonders  and 
places  of  historic  interest  east  of  the  Mississippi  —  and  many 
west  of  it;  to  meet  and  know  representative  men  and 
women;  to  enjoy  an  almost  uninterrupted  leisure,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  earn  a  livelihood  —  these  advantages  bear  me 
out  in  the  feeling  that  in  securing  the  position  I  did,  at  the 
time  I  did,  I  enjoyed  one  of  those  rare  compensations  which 
Fate  sometimes  bestows  upon  those  who  survive  unusual 
adversity. 


XXXIII 

When  I  regained  my  liberty  (September,  1903)  I  real- 
ized that  I  could  not  successfully  advocate  reforms  in  hos- 
pital management  until  I  had  first  proved  to  relatives  and 
friends  my  ability  to  earn  a  living.  And  I  knew  that,  after 
securing  a  position  in  the  business  world,  I  must  first  satisfy 
my  employers  before  I  could  hope  to  persuade  others  to  join 
me  in  prosecuting  the  reforms  I  had  at  heart.  Consequently 
during  the  first  year  of  my  renewed  business  activity  (the 
year  1904)  I  held  my  humanitarian  project  in  abeyance  and 
gave  all  my  executive  energy  to  my  business  duties.  During 
the  first  half  of  that  year  I  gave  but  little  time  to  reading  and 
writing,  and  none  at  all  to  drawing.  In  a  tentative  way, 
however,  I  did  occasionally  discuss  my  project  with  intimate 
friends;  but  I  spoke  of  its  consummation  as  a  thing  of  the 
uncertain  future.  At  that  time,  though  confident  of  accom- 
plishing my  set  purpose,  I  believed  I  should  be  fortunate  if 
my  projected  book  were  published  before  my  fortieth  year. 
That  I  am  able  to  publish  it  eight  years  earlier  is  due  to  one 
of  those  unlooked  for  combination  of  circumstances  which 
sometimes  causes  a  hurried  change  of  plans. 

The  events  of  November  and  December  1904,  and  Jan- 
uary, 1905,  must  be  mentioned,  and  then  I  shall  have  told 
the  reader  about  most  of  my  personal  fortunes.  Late  in  the 
fall  of  1904,  a  slight  illness  detained  me  for  two  weeks, 
in  a  city  several  hundred  miles  from  home.  The  illness  itself 
amounted  to  little,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  had  no  direct  bear- 
ing on  later  results,  except  that  in  giving  me  an  enforced  vaca- 

262 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  263 

tion  it  aflForded  me  an  opportunity  to  read  several  of  the 
world's  great  books  —  books  which  people  are  prone  to 
reserve  until  a  period  of  leisure  reminds  them  of  their  for- 
mer neglect. 

One  of  these  was  "Les  Miserables."  It  made  so  deep  an 
impression  on  me  that  I  am  inclined  to  believe  it  started  a 
train  of  thought  which  gradually  grew  into  a  purpose  so  all- 
absorbing  that  I  might  have  been  overwhelmed  by  it,  had 
not  my  over-active  imagination  been  brought  to  bay  by 
another's  conmion  sense.  Hugo's  plea  for  suffering  Human- 
ity —  for  the  world's  miserable  —  struck  a  responsive  chord 
within  me.  Not  only  did  it  revive  my  latent  desire  to  help 
the  afflicted;  it  did  more.  It  aroused  a  consuming  desire 
to  emulate  Hugo  himself,  by  writing  a  book  which  should 
arouse  sympathy  for  and  interest  in  that  class  of  unfortu- 
nates in  whose  behalf  I  felt  it  my  peculiar  right  and  duty  to 
speak.  I  question  whether  any  one  ever  read  "Les  Mis^- 
erables"  with  intenser  interest  or  feeling.  I  read  the  entire 
work  within  a  few  days.  By  day  I  read  the  story  imtil  my 
head  ached;  by  night  I  dreamed  of  it.  Then  and  there  I 
resolved  that  I  should  lose  no  time  in  the  beginning  of  my 
own  work. 

To  resolve  to  write  a  book  is  one  thing;  to  write  it  — 
fortunately  for  the  public  —  is  quite  another.  Though  I 
wrote  letters  with  ease,  I  soon  discovered  that  I  knew 
nothing  of  the  vigils  or  methods  of  writing  a  book.  Even 
then  I  did  not  attempt  to  predict  just  when  I  should  begin  to 
commit  my  story  to  paper.  But,  a  month  later,  a  member 
of  the  firm  made  a  remark  which  acted  as  a  sudden  spur. 
One  day,  while  discussing  the  business  situation  with  me,  he 
informed  me  that  my  work  had  convinced  him  that  he  had 
made  no  mistake  in  engaging  me  when  he  did.  Naturally  I 
was  pleased.    I  had  vindicated  sooner  than  I  had  hoped  his 


264  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

judgment  in  selecting  me  for  a  unique  work.  Aside  from 
appreciating  and  remembering  his  compliment,  at  the  time 
I  paid  no  more  attention  to  it.  Not  until  two  weeks  later 
did  the  force  of  his  remark  exert  any  peculiar  influence  on 
my  plans.  During  those  weeks  it  apparently  penetrated 
to  some  subconscious  part  of  me  —  a  part  which,  on  prior 
occasions,  had  assumed  such  authority  as  to  dominate  my 
whole  being.  But,  in  this  instance,  the  part  that  became 
dominant  did  not  exert  an  imruly  or  even  unwelcome  influ- 
ence. Full  of  interest  in  my  business  affairs  one  week,  the 
next  I  not  only  had  no  interest  in  them,  but  I  had  begun  even 
to  dislike  them.  From  a  matter-of-fact  man  of  business  I 
was  transformed  into  a  man  whose  one  thought  was  the 
amelioration  of  suffering  among  the  afflicted  insane.  Travel- 
ing on  this  high  plane  of  ideal  humanitarianism  I  could  get 
none  but  a  distorted  and  dissatisfying  view  of  the  life  I  must 
lead  if  I  should  continue  to  devote  my  time  to  the  compara- 
tively deadening  routine  of  commercial  affairs.  Thus  it 
was  inevitable  that  I  should  focus  my  attention  on  my  human- 
itarian project.  During  the  last  week  of  December  I  sought 
ammunition  by  making  a  visit  to  the  two  institutions  where 
I  had  once  been  confined  as  an  incompetent.  I  went  there 
to  discuss  certain  phases  of  the  subject  of  reform  with  the 
doctors  in  authority.  I  was  politely  received  and  listened 
to  with  a  degree  of  deference  which  was,  indeed,  satisfying. 
Though  I  realized  that  I  was  rather  intense  on  the  subject 
of  reform  I  did  not  have  that  clear  insight  into  my  state  of 
mind  which  the  doctors  had.  Indeed,  I  believe  that  only 
those  expert  in  the  detection  of  symptoms  of  a  slightly 
disturbed  mental  condition  could  possibly  have  observed 
anything  abnormal  about  me  at  that  time.  Only  when  I  dis- 
cussed my  fond  project  of  reform  did  I  betray  an  abnormal 
stress  of  feeling.     I  could  talk  as  convincingly  about  business 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  265 

as  I  had  at  any  time  in  my  life;  for,  even  at  the  height  of 
this  "wave  of  enthusiasm,"  I  dealt  at  length  with  a  certain 
banker  who  finally  placed  with  my  employers  a  large  con- 
tract. 
After  conferring  with  the  doctors,  or  rather  —  as  it  proved 

—  exhibiting  myself  to  them,  I  returned  to  New  Haven  and 
discussed  my  project  with  the  president  of  Yale  University. 
He  listened  patiently  —  he  could  scarcely  do  otherwise  — 
and  did  me  the  great  favor  of  interposing  his  judgment  at  a 
time  when  I  might  have  made  a  false  move.  I  told  him  that 
I  intended  to  visit  Washington  at  once,  and  enlist  the  aid  of 
the  President;  also  that  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  Hon.  John 
Hay,  who  was  then  alive.  Dr.  Hadley  tactfully  dissuaded  me. 
He  advised  me  not  to  approach  these  two  gentlemen  until  I 
had  more  thoroughly  crystallized  my  ideas  and  committed 
them  to  paper.  His  wise  suggestion  I  had  the  wisdom  to 
adopt. 

The  next  day  I  went  to  New  York,  and  on  January  ist,  1905, 
I  began  to  write.  Within  two  days  I  had  written  about  fif- 
teen thousand  words  —  for  the  most  part  on  the  subject  of 
reforms  and  how  to  effect  them.  By  way  of  mental  diver- 
sion I  wrote  personal  letters  to  intimate  friends.  One  of 
these  produced  a  result  unlooked  for.  It  was  so  well  writ- 
ten that  its  recipient  jumped  at  the  conclusion  that  I  had 
again  lost  my  poise.  There  were  about  it  compromising  ear- 
marks which  he  recognized,  I  intimated  that  I  was  about  to 
approach  a  certain  man  of  wealth  and  influence  in  New  York, 
with  a  view  to  securing  some  action  that  would  lead  to  reform. 
That  was  enough.    My  friend  showed  the  letter  to  my  brother 

—  the  one  who  had  acted  as  my  conservator.  Upon  reading  it 
he  knew  at  once  that  I  was  in  an  excited  mental  condition. 
But  he  could  not  very  well  judge  the  degree  of  the  excite- 
ment; for  when  I  had  last  talked  with  him  —  a  week  earlier 


266  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

—  I  had  not  discussed  my  large  plans.  Business  affairs 
and  my  hope  for  business  advancement  had  then  alone 
interested  me. 

I  talked  with  President  Hadley  on  Friday;  Saturday  I 
went  to  New  York;  Sunday  and  Monday  I  spent  at  the 
Yale  Club,  writing;  Tuesday,  this  tell-tale  letter  fell  under 
the  prescient  eye  of  my  brother.  That  day,  Tuesday,  he  at 
once  got  in  touch  with  me  by  telephone.  We  briefly  dis- 
cussed the  situation.  He  did  not  intimate  that  he  believed 
me  to  be  in  elation.  He  simply  urged  me  not  to  attempt  to 
interest  any  one  in  my  project  until  I  had  first  returned  to 
New  Haven  and  discussed  it  with  him.  Now  I  had  already 
gone  so  far  as  to  invite  the  members  of  the  firm  to  dine  with 
me  that  very  night  at  the  Yale  Club,  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
forming them  of  my  plans.  This  I  did,  beHeving  it  to  be  only 
fair  that  they  should  know  what  I  intended  to  do,  so  that 
they  might  dispense  with  my  services  should  they  feel  that 
my  plans  would  in  any  way  impair  my  usefulness  as  an 
employee.  Of  this  dinner  engagement,  therefore,  I  told  my 
brother.  But,  so  insistently  did  he  urge  me  to  defer  any 
such  conference  as  I  proposed  until  I  had  talked  with  him 
that,  although  it  was  too  late  to  break  the  dinner  engage- 
ment, I  agreed  to  avoid,  if  possible,  all  reference  to  my 
project.  With  that  qualified  but  well-meant  promise,  and 
the  promise  to  return  home  the  next  day,  our  telephone 
conference  ended. 

That  night  my  guests  honored  me  as  agreed.  For  an 
hour  or  two  we  discussed  business  conditions  and  affairs  in 
general.  Then,  one  of  them  referred  pointedly  to  my  im- 
plied promise  to  unburden  myself  on  a  certain  subject,  the 
nature  of  which  he  did  not,  at  the  time,  know.  I  immediately 
decided  that  it  would  be  best  to  "take  the  bull  by  the  horns," 
submit  my  plans,  and,  if  necessary,  sever  my  connection 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  267 

with  the  firm,  should  its  members  force  me  to  choose  (as  I 
put  it)  between  themselves  and  Humanity.  I  then  pro- 
ceeded to  unfold  my  scheme;  and,  though  I  may  have  ex- 
hibited a  decided  intensity  of  feeling  during  my  discourse, 
at  no  time,  I  believe,  did  I  overstep  the  bounds  of  what 
appeared  to  be  sane  enthusiasm.  My  employers  agreed  that 
my  purpose  was  commendable,  —  that,  no  doubt  I  could  and 
would  eventually  be  able  to  do  much  for  those  I  had  left  be- 
hind in  a  durance  I  so  well  knew  to  be  vile.  Their  one  warn- 
ing was  that  I  seemed  in  too  great  a  hurry.  They  called 
my  attention  to  the  fact  that  I  had  not  been  long  enough 
re-established  in  business  to  approach  successfully  and  per- 
suade men  of  wealth  and  influence  to  take  hold  of  my  pro- 
ject. And  one  of  my  guests  very  aptly  observed  that  I  could 
not  afford  to  be  a  philanthropist,  which  objection  I  met  by 
saying  that  all  I  intended  to  do  was  to  supply  ideas  for  those 
able  to  apply  them.  The  conference  ended  satisfactorily. 
My  employers  disclaimed  any  personal  objection  to  my  pro- 
ceeding with  my  project  if  I  would,  and  yet  remaining  in 
their  employ.  They  simply  urged  me  to  "go  slow."  "Wait 
until  you're  forty,"  said  one.  I  then  thought  that  I  might 
do  so.  And  perhaps  I  should  have  waited  so  long  had  not 
the  next  two  days  put  me  on  the  right  road  to  an  earlier 
inauguration  of  my  cherished  plans. 

The  next  day,  January  4th,  true  to  my  word,  I  went  home. 
That  night  I  had  a  long  talk  with  my  brother.  I  did  not 
suspect  that  a  man  like  myself,  capable  of  dealing  with 
bankers  and  talking  for  several  consecutive  hours  with  his 
employers  without  arousing  their  suspicion  as  to  his  mental 
integrity,  was  to  be  suspected  by  his  own  relatives.  Nor, 
indeed,  with  the  exception  of  my  brother  who  had  read  my 
suspiciously  excellent  letter,  were  any  of  my  relatives  dis- 
turbed, —  and  he  did  nothing  to  disabuse  my  assurance. 


268  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

After  our  night  conference  he  left  for  his  own  home, 
casually  mentioning  that  he  would  talk  with  me  again  the 
next  morning.  That  pleased  me,  for  I  was  in  a  talkative 
mood  and  craved  an  interested  listener. 

When  my  brother  returned  the  next  morning  I  willingly 
accepted  his  invitation  to  go  with  him  to  his  office  where 
we  could  talk  without  fear  of  interruption.  Arrived  there, 
I  calmly  sat  down  and  prepared  to  prove  my  whole  case.  I 
had  scarcely  ''opened  fire"  when  in  walked  a  stranger  —  a 
strapping  fellow,  to  whom  my  brother  immediately  intro- 
duced me.  I  instinctively  felt  that  it  was  by  no  mere 
chance  that  this  third  party  had  so  suddenly  appeared. 
My  eye  at  once  lighted  on  the  dark  blue  trousers  worn  by 
the  otherwise  conventionally  dressed  stranger.  That  was 
enough.  The  situation  became  so  clear  that  the  explana- 
tions which  followed  were  superfluous.  In  a  word,  I  was 
under  arrest,  or  in  imminent  danger  of  being  arrested.  To 
say  that  I  was  not  in  the  least  disconcerted  would  scarcely 
be  true,  for  I  had  not  divined  my  brother's  clever  purpose 
in  luring  me  to  his  office.  But  I  can  say,  with  truth,  that  I 
was  the  coolest  person  in  the  room.  I  knew  what  I  should 
do  next,  but  my  brother  and  the  officer  of  the  law  could  only 
guess.  The  fact  is  I  did  nothing.  I  calmly  remained  seated, 
awaiting  the  verdict  which  I  well  knew  my  brother,  with 
characteristic  decision,  had  prepared.  With  considerable 
effort  —  for  the  situation,  he  has  since  told  me,  was  the  most 
trying  one  of  his  life  —  he  informed  me  that  on  the  preceding 
day  he  had  talked  with  the  doctors  to  whom  I  had  so  thought- 
fully exhibited  myself  a  week  earlier.  All  agreed  that 
I  was  in  a  state  of  elation  which  might  or  might  not 
become  more  pronounced.  They  had  advised  that  I  be 
persuaded  to  submit  voluntarily  to  restraint  and  treatment, 
or  that  I  be  forcibly  committed.     On  this  advice  my  brother 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  269 

had  proceeded  to  act.  And  it  was  well  so;  for,  though  I 
appreciated  the  fact  that  I  was  by  no  means  in  a  normal  state 
of  mind,  I  had  not  a  clear  enough  insight  into  my  condition 
to  realize  that  treatment  under  a  certain  amount  of  restraint 
was  what  I  needed  —  and  that  continued  freedom  might 
further  inflame  an  imagination  already  overwrought. 

A  few  simple  statements  by  my  brother  convinced  me  that 
it  was  for  my  own  good  and  the  peace  of  mind  of  my  rela- 
tives that  I  should  temporarily  surrender  my  freedom.  This 
I  agreed  to  do.  Perhaps  the  presence  of  two  hundred  pounds 
of  brawn  and  muscle,  representing  the  law,  lent  persuasive- 
ness to  my  brother's  words.  In  fact,  I  did  assent  the  more 
readily  because  I  admired  the  thorough,  sane,  fair,  almost 
artistic  manner  in  which  my  brother  had  brought  me  to  bay. 
I  am  inclined  to  believe  that,  had  I  suspected  that  a  re- com- 
mitment was  imminent,  I  should  have  fled  to  a  neighboring 
State  during  the  preceding  night.  The  reader  should  not, 
however,  imagine  that  I  was  treated  with  any  unnecessary 
severity.  The  right  thing  in  the  right  way  was  done  at  the 
right  time.  Though  up  to  this  moment  I  had  been  the  sub- 
ject of  strategy,  not  for  one  moment  thereafter,  in  any  par- 
ticular, was  I  deceived.  I  was  frankly  told  that  several 
doctors  had  pronounced  me  elated,  and  that  for  my  own 
good  I  must  submit  to  treatment.  I  was  allowed  to  choose 
between  a  Probate  Court  commitment  which  would  have 
"admitted  me"  (humorous  phrase)  to  the  State  Hos- 
pital, or  a  "voluntary  commitment"  (somewhat  humor- 
ous phrase)  which  would  enable  me  to  enter  the  large 
private  hospital  where  I  had  previously  passed  from  de- 
pression to  elation,  and  had  later  suffered  tortures.  I 
naturally  chose  the  more  desirable  of  the  two  disguised 
blessings,  and  agreed  to  start  at  once  for  the  private  hospital. 
It  was  not  that  I  feared  again  to  enter  the  State  Hospital,  — 


270  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

I  wished  to  avoid  the  publicity  which  necessarily  would  have 
attended  my  commitment  to  that  institution.  Then,  too, 
there  were  certain  privileges  which  I  knew  I  could  not 
enjoy  at  the  State  Hospital,  where  doctors  fear  or  refuse  to 
treat  each  case  on  its  own  merits.  Having  re-established 
myself  in  society  and  business  I  did  not  wish  to  forfeit  that 
advantage;  and  as  the  doctors  believed  that  my  period  of 
elation  would  be  short,  it  would  have  been  sheer  folly  to 
advertise  the  fact  that  my  mental  integrity  had  again  fallen 
under   suspicion. 

But  before  starting  for  the  asylum  I  imposed  certain  con- 
ditions. One  was  that  the  man  with  authoritative  trousers 
should  walk  behind  us  at  such  a  distance  that  no  friend  or 
acquaintance  who  might  see  us  would  divine  that  I  was 
imder  guard;  the  other  was  that  the  doctors  at  the  institu- 
tion should  agree  to  grant  my  every  request,  no  matter  how 
trivial,  so  long  as  it  could  in  no  way  work  to  my  own  injury. 
My  privileges  were  to  include  that  of  reading  and  writing 
to  my  heart's  content,  and  the  procuring  of  such  books  and 
supplies  as  my  fancy  might  dictate.  All  this  was  agreed  to. 
In  return  I  agreed  to  submit  to  the  surveillance  of  an  attend- 
ant when  I  went  about  the  city.  This  I  knew  would  con- 
tribute to  the  peace  of  mind  of  my  relatives,  who  naturally 
could  not  rid  themselves  of  the  fear  that  one  so  nearly  sane 
as  myself  might  take  it  into  his  head  to  leave  the  State  and 
resist  further  attempts  at  incarceration.  As  I  felt  that  I 
could  easily  elude  my  keeper,  should  I  care  to  escape,  his 
presence  also  contributed  to  my  peace  of  mind,  for  I  argued 
that  the  ability  to  outwit  my  guard  would  atone  for  the 
offense  itself. 

I  then  started  for  the  hospital;  and  I  went  with  a  willing- 
ness surprising  even  to  myself.  A  cheerful  philosophy  en- 
abled me  to  turn  an  apparently  disagreeable  situation  into 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  271 

one  that  was  positively  pleasing  to  me.  I  convinced  myself 
that  I  could  extract  more  real  enjoyment  from  life  during 
the  ensuing  weeks  within  the  walls  of  a  "retreat"  than  I 
could  in  the  world  outside.  My  one  desire  was  to  write, 
write,  write.  My  fingers  itched  for  a  pen.  My  desire  to 
write  was,  I  imagine,  as  irresistible  as  the  desire  of  a  drunk- 
ard for  his  dram.  And  the  act  of  writing  resulted  in  an 
intoxicating  pleasure  composed  of  a  mingling  of  emotions 
that  defies  analysis. 

That  I  should  so  calmly,  almost  eagerly,  enter  where 
devils  might  fear  to  tread,  may  surprise  the  reader  who 
already  has  been  informed  of  the  cruel  treatment  I  had  for- 
merly received  there.  I  feared  nothing  for  I  knew  all.  Hav- 
ing seen  the  worst,  I  knew  how  to  avoid  the  pitfalls  into 
which,  during  my  first  confinement,  I  had  fallen  or  delib- 
erately walked.  I  was  confident  that  I  should  suffer  no 
abuse  or  injustice  so  long  as  the  doctors  in  charge  should  live 
up  to  their  agreement  and  treat  me  as  a  gentleman.  This 
they  did,  and  my  quick  recovery  and  subsequent  discharge 
may  be  attributed  mainly  to  this  cause.  The  assistant 
physicians  who  had  come  in  contact  with  me  during  my  first 
experience  in  this  hospital  were  no  longer  in  charge.  They 
had  resigned  some  months  earher  —  shortly  after  the  death 
of  the  former  superintendent.  Thus  it  was  that  I  started 
with  a  clean  record,  free  from  those  prejudices  which  so 
often  bias  the  judgment  of  a  doctor  who  has  treated  a 
patient  at  his  worst. 


XXXIV 

On  more  than  one  occasion  my  chameleon-like  tempera- 
ment has  enabled  me  to  adjust  myself  to  new  conditions, 
but  never  has  it  served  me  better  than  it  did  at  the  time 
of  which  I  write.  A  free  man  on  New  Year's  Day,  enjoying 
the  pleasures  of  a  congenial  club-life,  four  days  later  I  found 
myself  again  under  the  lock  and  key  of  an  asylum  for  the 
insane.  Never  had  I  enjoyed  life  in  New  York  more  than 
during  those  first  days  of  that  new  year.  To  suffer  so  rude 
a  change  was,  indeed,  enough  to  inspire  a  feeling  of  discon- 
tent, if  not  despair;  yet,  aside  from  the  momentary  initial 
shock,  my  contentment  was  in  no  degree  diminished.  I 
can  say  with  truth  that  I  was  as  complacent  the  very  moment 
I  re-crossed  the  threshold  of  that  "retreat"  as  I  had  been 
when  crossing  and  recrossing  at  will  the  threshold  of  my  club. 

Of  everything  I  thought  and  did  during  the  interesting 
weeks  which  followed  I  have  a  complete  record.  The  mo- 
ment I  accepted  the  inevitable,  I  determined  to  spend  my 
time  to  good  advantage.  Knowing  from  experience  that  I 
must  observe  my  own  case,  if  I  was  to  have  any  record  of 
it,  I  provided  myself  in  advance  with  note-books.  In  these, 
from  day  to  day,  I  recorded,  I  might  almost  say,  my 
every  action,  and  every  thought  and  fancy.  The  sane  part 
of  me,  which  fortunately  was  dominant,  subjected  its  tem- 
porarily insane  and  unruly  part  to  a  sort  of  scientific  scru- 
tiny and  surveillance.  From  morning  till  night  I  dogged 
the  steps  of  my  restless  body  and  my  more  restless  imagina- 
tion.    I  observed  the  physical  and  mental  symptoms  which 

272 


A  MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  273 

I  knew  were  characteristic  of  elation.  An  exquisite  light- 
heartedness,  a  slight  ringing  in  the  ears,  the  varying  dilation 
of  the  pupils  of  the  eyes,  my  pulse,  my  weight,  my  appetite 
—  all  these  I  observed  and  recorded  with  a  care  that  would 
have  put  to  blush  a  majority  of  the  doctors  now  working 
among  the  insane. 

But  this  record  of  symptoms,  though  minute,  is  vague 
compared  to  my  reckless  analysis  of  my  emotions.  With  a 
lack  of  reserve  characteristic  of  my  sublime  mood,  I  described 
the  joy  of  living,  which,  for  the  most  part,  then  consisted  of 
the  joy  of  writing.  And,  even  now,  as  I  re-read  my  record, 
I  feel  that  I  cannot  overstate  the  pleasure  I  found  in  sur- 
rendering myself  completely  to  that  controlling  impulse. 
The  excellence  of  my  composition  seemed  to  me  beyond  crit- 
icism. And  as,  to  one  in  a  state  of  elation,  things  are  pretty 
much  as  they  seem,  I  was  able  to  experience  the  subtle  de- 
lights which,  I  fancy,  thrill  the  soul  of  a  master.  During 
this  month  of  elation  I  wrote  words  enough  to  fill  a  book 
nearly  as  large  as  this  one.  Having  found  that  each  filling 
of  my  fountain  pen  was  sufficient  for  the  writing  of  about 
twenty-eight  hundred  words,  I  kept  a  record  of  the  number 
of  times  I  filled  it.  This  minute  calculation  I  carried  to  an 
extreme.  If  I  wrote  for  fifty-nine  minutes,  and  then  read  for 
seventeen,  that  fact  I  recorded.  Thus,  in  my  diary  and  out 
of  it,  I  wrote  and  wrote,  until  the  tips  of  my  thumb  and 
forefinger  grew  numb.  As  this  numbness  increased,  and 
general  weariness  of  the  hand  set  in,  there  came  a  gradual 
flagging  of  my  creative  impulse,  until  a  very  sane  unproductiv- 
ity  supervened.  Thus  I  had  and  have  now  a  safe  mental 
barometer  and  can  judge  my  degree  of  normality  —  for  no 
one  is  absolutely  normal  —  by  the  intensity  of  my  desire  to 
write.  This  is  fortunate-;  for  surely  he  who  can  detect 
an  abnormal  impulse  in  so  innocent  a  manner,  and  correct 
19 


274  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

it  when  discovered,  simply  by  writing  it  to  sleep,  is  not  likely 
to  experience  more  trouble  in  this  world  than  he  whose  in- 
evitable ills  present  themselves  in  more  conventional  and 
usually  painful  ways. 

The  reader  may  well  wonder  in  what  my  so-called  insan- 
ity at  this  time  consisted.  Had  I  any  of  those  impracticable 
delusions  which  had  characterized  my  former  period  of 
elation?  No,  not  one  —  unless  an  unreasonable  haste  to 
achieve  my  ambitions  may  be  counted  a  delusion.  My  at- 
tention simply  focused  itself  on  my  project.  All  other 
considerations  seemed  of  little  moment.  My  interest  in 
business  waned  to  the  vanishing  point.  Yet,  one  thing 
should  be  noted :  I  did  deliberately  devote  many  hours  to  the 
consideration  of  business  affairs.  ReaHzing  that  one  way 
to  overcome  an  absorbing  impulse  is  to  divide  the  attention, 
I  wrote  a  brief  of  the  arguments  I  had  so  often  presented  to 
bankers.  In  this  way  I  was  able  to  convince  the  doctors 
that  my  intense  interest  in  literature  and  reform  would  soon 
spend  itself.  » 

A  consuming  desire  to  effect  reforms  had  been  the  deter- 
mining factor  when  I  calmly  weighed  the  situation  with  a 
view  to  making  the  best  possible  use  of  my  impulse  to  write. 
The  events  of  the  immediate  past  had  convinced  me  that  I 
could  not  hope  to  interest  men  of  wealth  and  influence  in 
my  humanitarian  project  until  I  had  some  definite  plan  to 
submit  for  their  leisurely  consideration.  Further,  I  had 
discovered  that  an  attempt  to  approach  these  men  directly 
disturbed  my  relatives  and  friends  who  had  not  yet  learned 
to  dissociate  present  intentions  from  past  performances.  I 
had,  therefore,  determined  to  drill  myself  in  the  art  of  com- 
position to  the  end  that  I  might  write  a  story  of  my  life 
which  would  merit  publication.  I  felt  that  such  a  book, 
once  written,  would  do  its  own  work,  regardless  of  my  subse- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  275 

quent  fortunes.  Other  books  had  spoken  even  from  the 
grave;  why  should  not  my  book  so  speak  —  if  necessary? 

With  this  thought  in  mind  I  began  not  only  to  read  and 
write,  but  to  test  my  impulse  in  order  that  I  might  discover 
if  it  were  a  genuine  part  of  my  being,  an  abnormal  impulse, 
or  a  mere  whim.  I  reasoned  that  to  compare  my  own  feel- 
ings toward  and  for  literature,  and  my  emotions  experi- 
enced in  the  heat  of  composition,  with  the  recorded  feelings 
of  successful  men  of  letters,  would  give  me  a  clue  to  the  truth 
on  this  question.  At  this  time  I  read  several  books  of  a 
nature  that  would  have  served  as  a  basis  for  my  deductions, 
but  only  one  of  them  did  I  have  time  to  analyze  and  note  in 
my  diary.  That  one  was  "Wit  and  Wisdom  of  the  Earl  of 
Beaconsfield."  The  following  passages  from  the  pen  of 
Disraeli  I  transcribed  in  my  diary  with  occasional  comments. 

"Remember  who  you  are,  and  also  that  it  is  your  duty  to 
excel.  Providence  has  given  you  a  great  lot.  Think  ever 
that  you  are  born  to  perform  great  duties."  This  I  inter- 
preted in  much  the  same  spirit  that  I  had  interpreted  the 
forty-fifth  Psalm  on  a  prior  occasion. 

"It  was  that  noble  ambition,  the  highest  and  best,  that 
must  be  born  in  the  heart,  and  organized  in  the  brain,  which 
will  not  let  a  man  be  content  unless  his  intellectual  power  is 
recognized  by  his  race,  and  desires  that  it  should  contribute 
to  their  welfare." 

"Authors  —  the  creators  of  opinion." 

"What  appear  to  be  calamities  are  often  the  sources  of 
fortune." 

"  Change  is  inevitable  in  a  progressive  country.  Change 
is  constant."  ("Then  why,"  was  my  recorded  comment, 
"  cannot  the  changes  I  propose  to  bring  about,  be  brought 
about  ?  " 

"  The  author  is,  as  we  must  ever  remember,  of  peculiar 


276  A   MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF 

organization.  He  is  a  being  born  with  a  predisposition 
which  with  him  is  irresistible,  the  bent  of  which  he  cannot 
in  any  way  avoid,  whether  it  directs  him  to  the  abstruse 
researches  of  erudition  or  induces  him  to  mount  into  the 
fervid  and  turbulent  atmosphere  of  imagination,"  "This," 
I  wrote  (and  I  wrote  it  the  day  after  arriving  at  the  hospital) 
"is  a  fair  diagnosis  of  my  case  as  it  stands  to-day,  assuming, 
of  course,  that  an  author  is  one  who  loves  to  write,  and  can 
write  with  ease,  even  though  what  he  says  may  have  no  lit- 
erary value.  My  past  proves  that  my  organization  is  a  pecul- 
iar one.  I  have  for  years  (two  and  a  half)  had  a  desire  to 
achieve  success  along  literary  lines.  I  believe  that,  feeling 
as  I  do  to-day,  nothing  can  prevent  my  writing.  If  I  had 
to  make  a  choice  at  once  between  a  sure  success  in  the  busi- 
ness career  ahead  of  me,  and  doubtful  success  in  the  field  of 
literature  I  would  willingly,  yes  confidently,  choose  the  latter. 
I  have  read  many  a  time  about  successful  writers  who  learned 
how  to  write,  and  by  dint  of  hard  work  ground  out  their 
ideas.  If  these  men  could  succeed,  why  should  not  a  man 
who  is  in  danger  of  being  ground  up  by  an  excess  of  ideas  and 
imagination  succeed,  when  he  seems  able  to  put  those  ideas 
into  fairly  intelligible  English  ?  He  should  and  will  succeed." 
Therefore,  without  delay,  I  began  the  course  of  experi- 
ment and  practice  which  culminated  within  a  few  months 
in  the  first  draft  of  my  story.  Wise  enough  to  realize 
the  advantages  of  a  situation  free  from  the  annoying 
interruptions  of  the  work-a-day  world,  I  enjoyed  a  degree 
of  liberty  seldom  enjoyed  by  those  in  possession  of  complete 
legal  liberty  and  its  attendant  obligations.  When  I  wished 
to  read,  write,  talk,  walk,  sleep,  or  eat,  I  did  the  thing  I 
wished.  I  went  to  the  theater  when  the  spirit  moved  me  to 
do  so,  accompanied,  of  course,  by  an  attendant,  who,  on 
such  occasions,  played  the  role  of  chum. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  277 

Friends  called  to  see  me,  and  at  their  own,  or  my 
suggestion,  I  was  invited  for  dinner  outside  the  walls  of  my 
"cloister."  At  one  of  these  dinners  an  incident  occurred 
which  throws  a  clear  light  on  my  condition  at  the  time.  The 
friend,  whose  willing  prisoner  I  was,  had  invited  a  common 
friend  to  join  the  party.  The  latter  had  not  heard  of  my 
re-commitment.  At  my  suggestion,  he  who  shared  my 
secret  had  agreed  not  to  refer  to  my  situation  unless  I  first 
broached  the  subject.  There  was  nothing  strange  in  the 
fact  that  we  three  should  meet.  Just  such  impromptu  cel- 
ebrations had  before  occurred  among  us.  We  dined,  and, 
as  friends  will,  indulged  in  that  exchange  of  thoughts  which 
bespeaks  intimacy.  After  hours  of  delectable  communion  I 
so  shaped  the  conversation  that  a  consideration  of  my 
past  experiences  and  the  possibility  of  their  recurrence  fol- 
lowed.    The  uninformed  friend  derided  the  idea. 

"Then,  if  I  were  to  tell  you,"  said  I,  "that  I  am  at  this 
moment  supposedly  insane  —  at  least  not  normal  —  and 
that  when  I  leave  you  to-night  I  shall  go  direct  to  the  very 
hospital  where  I  was  formerly  confined,  there  to  remain  until 
the  doctors  pronounce  me  fit  for  freedom,  what  should  you 
say?" 

"I  should  say  that  you  are  a  choice  sort  of  liar,"  he  re- 
torted. 

This  genial  insult  I  swallowed  with  gratification.  It  was, 
in  truth,  a  timely  and  encouraging  compliment,  the  force  of 
which  its  giver  failed  to  appreciate  until  my  host  had  corrob- 
orated my  statements. 

If  I  could  so  favorably  impress  an  intimate  friend  at  a 
time  when  I  was  elated,  it  is  not  surprising  that  I  should 
subsequently  hold  an  interview  with  a  comparative  stranger 
—  the  cashier  of  a  local  bank  —  without  betraying  my  con- 
dition.    As  business  interviews  go,  this  was  in  a  class  by 


278  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

itself.  While  my  attendant  stood  guard  at  the  door,  1,  a 
registered  inmate  of  an  asylum,  entered  the  banking  room 
and  talked  with  a  level-headed  banker.  And  that  inter- 
view was  not  without  effect  in  subsequent  negotiations 
which  led  to  the  closing  of  a  contract  amounting  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars. 

The  very  day  I  re-entered  the  hospital  I  stopped  on  the 
way  at  a  local  hotel  and  prociu"ed  some  of  the  hostelry's 
stationery.  By  using  this  in  the  writing  of  personal  and 
business  letters  I  managed  to  conceal  my  condition  and  my 
whereabouts  from  all  except  near  relatives,  and  a  few  inti- 
mate friends  who  shared  the  secret.  I  quite  enjoyed  lead- 
ing this  legitimate  double-life.  The  situation  appealed  (not 
in  vain)  to  my  sense  of  humor.  Many  a  sly  laugh  did  I  in- 
dulge in  when  I  closed  a  letter  with  such  ambiguous  phrases 
as  the  following:  "Matters  of  importance  necessitate  my  re- 
maining where  I  am  for  an  indefinite  period."  .  .  .  "A 
situation  has  recently  arisen  which  will  delay  my  intended 
trip  South.  As  soon  as  I  have  closed  a  certain  contract 
[having  in  mind  my  contract  to  re-establish  my  sanity]  I  shall 
again  take  to  the  road."  ...  To  this  day  few  friends  or 
acquaintances  know  that  I  was  in  semi-exile  during  the 
month  of  January,  1905.  My  desire  to  suppress  the  fact 
was  not  due,  as  already  intimated,  to  any  sensitiveness  regard- 
ing the  subject  of  insanity.  What  afterwards  justified  my 
course  was  that  on  regaining  my  freedom  I  was  able,  with- 
out embarrassment,  again  to  take  up  my  work.  Within  a 
month  of  my  voluntary  commitment,  that  is,  in  February, 
I  started  on  business  for  the  Central  West  and  South  where  I 
remained  until  the  following  July.  During  those  months 
I  felt  perfectly  well,  and  have  remained  in  excellent  health 
ever  since. 

This  second  and  last  hospital  experience  was  most  for- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  279 

tunate.  It  came  at  a  time  and  in  a  manner  to  furnish  me 
with  strong  arguments  wherewith  to  support  my  con- 
tention that  madmen  are  too  often  man-made,  and  that 
he  who  is  potentially  a  madman  may  keep  a  saving  grip  on 
his  own  reason  if  he  be  fortunate  enough  to  receive  that 
kindly  and  intelligent  treatment  to  which  one  on  the  brink 
of  chaos  is  of  right  entitled.  Though  during  this  second 
period  of  elation  I  was  never  in  a  mood  so  reckless  as  that 
which  obtained  immediately  after  my  recovery  from  depres- 
sion in  August,  1902,  I  was  at  least  so  excitable  that,  had 
those  in  authority  attempted  to  impose  upon  me,  I  should 
have  thrown  discretion  to  the  winds.  To  them,  indeed,  I 
frankly  reiterated  a  terse  dictum  which  I  had  coined  during 
my  first  period  of  elation.  "  Just  press  the  button  of  Injus- 
tice," said  I,  "and  I'll  do  the  rest!"  This  I  meant,  for 
fear  of  punishment  does  not  restrain  a  man  in  the  dare- 
devil grip  of  elation. 

What  fostered  my  self-control  was  a  sense  of  gratitude. 
The  doctors  and  attendants  treated  me  as  a  gentleman. 
Therefore  it  was  not  difficult  to  prove  myself  one.  But,  had 
they  for  one  moment  treated  me  as  a  criminal,  or  a  dumb 
brute,  I  should  have  resented  their  action  as  vigorously  as  I 
had  the  action  of  their  predecessors  upon  prior  occasions. 
Instead  of  regaining  my  normal  poise  and  securing  a  com- 
plete freedom  within  a  month,  in  all  probability  I  should 
have  gone  from  bad  to  worse,  lashing  myself  into  a  justifiable 
fury  that  undoubtedly  would  have  necessitated  my  being 
confined  for  perhaps  an  indefinite  period.  Fortunately, 
my  case  was  treated  on  its  merits.  I  was  given  individual 
treatment.  My  every  whim  was  at  least  considered  with 
a  politeness  which  enabled  me  to  accept  a  denial  with 
a  highly  sane  equanimity.  Aside  from  mild  tonics  I 
took  no  other  medicine  than  that  most  beneficial  sort  which 


28o  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

inheres  in  kindness.  The  feeling  that,  though  a  prisoner,  I 
could  still  command  obligations  from  others,  led  me  to  rec- 
ognize my  own  reciprocal  obligations,  and  was  a  constant 
source  of  delight.  The  doctors,  by  proving  their  title  to  that 
confidence  which  I  tentatively  gave  them  upon  re-entering 
the  institution,  had  no  difficulty  in  convincing  me  that  a 
temporary  curtailment  of  privileges  was  for  my  own  good. 
They  all  evinced  a  consistent  desire  to  trust  me.  In  return 
I  trusted  them.  Nothing  so  well  illustrates  my  proper 
treatment,  day  in  and  day  out,  as  the  fact  that  I  cannot  now 
recall  a  single  denial  of  a  request.  Though  not  a  few  of  my 
requests  were  denied,  my  confidence,  at  the  time,  that  the 
denials  were  fair,  has  obscured  the  remembrance  of  them. 
My  case  was  a  mild  one;  but  I  should  have  fought  my  way 
again  to  freedom  had  I  been  met  with  that  curt  unreasonable- 
ness which  characterized  the  attitude  of  the  doctor  who  had 
charge  of  me  during  my  first  period  of  confinement  in 
this  hospital.  Doctors  and  attendants  who  think  it  a  thank- 
less task  to  attempt  to  gain  the  confidence  and  good- will  of 
a  patient  at  the  beginning  of  his  confinement  will  do  well  to 
ponder  the  contrast  afforded  by  my  actions  during  my  first 
and  my  last  period  of  elation;  and  especially  should  they 
remember  that  psychiatrists  of  wide  experience  and  the 
highest  standing  afi&rm  that  an  elated  or  maniacal  condition 
is  inevitably  aggravated  by  unsound  and  tactless  treatment. 
Indeed,  one  authority  with  whom  I  discussed  this  point 
went  so  far  as  to  say  that  whether  an  elated  patient  shall 
become  a  madman  —  and  potential  enemy  —  or  a  fairly 
obedient  and  interesting  friend  depends,  in  a  majority  of 
cases,  upon  the  capacity  and  attitude  of  the  persons  in 
charge  of  him.  This  significant  fact  granted,  are  not  the 
hospital  authorities  largely  responsible  for  the  perpetuation 
of  the  dread  of  institutions  wherein  the  insane  are  confined, 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  281 

and  will  not  this  dread  be  kept  alive  until  the  thousands  of 
recoverable  cases  treated  each  year  are  so  intelligently 
cared  for  that,  upon  discharge,  "ex-inmates"  may  sgeak 
well,  rather  than  ill,  of  an  institution  and  the  men  li^ 
authority  ? 


XXXV 

On  leaving  the  hospital  and  resuming  my  travels,  I  felt 
sure  that  any  one  of  several  magazines  or  newspapers  would 
willingly  have  had  me  conduct  my  campaign  under  its  ner- 
vously commercial  auspices;  but  a  flash-in- the-pan  method 
did  not  appeal  to  me.  Those  noxious  growths,  Incompe- 
tence, Abuse,  and  Injustice,  had  not  only  to  be  cut  down,  but 
rooted  out.  Therefore,  I  climg  to  my  determination  to  write 
a  book  —  an  instrument  of  attack  which,  if  it  cuts  and  tears 
at  all,  does  so  as  long  as  the  need  exists.  Inasmuch  as  I 
knew  that  I  still  had  to  learn  how  to  write  I  approached  my 
task  with  deliberation.  I  planned  to  do  two  things:  first, 
to  crystallize  my  thoughts  by  discussion  —  telling  the  story 
of  my  life  whenever,  in  my  travels,  I  should  meet  any  person 
who  inspired  my  confidence;  second,  while  the  subject- 
matter  of  my  book  was  shaping  itself  in  my  mind,  to  drill  my- 
self by  carrying  out  a  letter-writing  campaign.  Both  these 
things  I  did  —  as  certain  indulgent  friends  who  bore  the 
brunt  of  my  spoken  and  written  discourse  can  certify.  I 
feared  the  less  to  be  dubbed  a  bore,  and  I  hesitated  the  less 
perhaps  to  impose  upon  good  nature,  because  of  my  firm 
conviction  that  one  in  a  position  to  help  the  many  was  him- 
self entitled  to  the  help  of  the  few. 

I  wrote  scores  of  letters  of  great  length.  I  cared  little  if 
some  of  my  friends  should  conclude  that  I  had  been  born  a 
century  too  late;  for,  without  them  as  confidants,  I  must 
write  with  no  more  inspiring  object  in  view  than  the  waste- 
basket.     Indeed,,   I  found  it  difficult  to  compose  without 

282 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  283 

keeping  before  me  the  image  of  a  friend.  Having  stipulated 
that  every  letter  should  be  returned  upon  demand,  I  wrote 
without  reserve  —  my  imagination  had  free  rein.  I  wrote 
as  I  thought,  and  I  thought  as  I  pleased.  The  result 
was  that  within  six  months  I  found  myself  writing  with 
a  facility  which  hitherto  had  obtained  only  during  ela- 
tion. At  first  I  was  suspicious  of  this  new-found  and  appar- 
ently permanent  ease  of  expression  —  so  suspicious  that  1 
set  about  diagnosing  my  physical  symptoms.  My  self- 
examination  convinced  me  that  I  was,  in  fact,  quite  normal. 
I  had  no  irresistible  desire  to  write,  nor  was  there  any 
suggestion  of  that  exalting  light-heartedness  which  character- 
izes elation.  Further,  after  a  prolonged  period  of  composi- 
tion, I  experienced  a  comforting  sense  of  exhaustion  which 
I  had  not  known  while  elated.  I  therefore  concluded  — 
and  rightly  —  that  my  unwonted  facility  was  the  product 
of  practice.  At  last  I  found  myself  able  to  conceive  an  idea 
and  immediately  transfer  it  to  paper. 

In  July,  1905,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  time  for 
beginning  my  book  was  at  hand.  Nevertheless,  I  found  it 
difficult  to  set  a  definite  date.  About  this  time  I  so  arranged 
my  itinerary  that  I  was  able  to  enjoy  two  summer  —  though 
stormy  —  nights  and  a  day  at  the  Summit  House  on  Mount 
Washington.  What  better,  thought  I,  than  to  begin  my 
book  on  a  plane  so  high  as  to  be  appropriate  to  this  noble 
summit?  I  therefore  began  to  compose  a  dedication.  "To 
Humanity"  was  as  far  as  I  got.  There  the  Muse  forsook 
me. 

But,  returning  to  earth  and  going  about  my  business,  I 
soon  again  found  myself  in  the  midst  of  inspiring  natural 
surroundings  —  the  Berkshire  Hills.  At  this  juncture  Man 
came  to  the  assistance  of  Nature,  and  perhaps  with  an  un- 
consciousness equal  to  her  own.     It  was  a  chance  remark 


284  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

made  by  an  eminent  man  that  aroused  my  subconscious 
literary  personality  to  irresistible  action.  I  had  long  wished 
to  discuss  my  project  with  a  man  of  deserved  reputation, 
and  if  his  reputation  were  international,  so  much  the  better. 
I  desired  the  unbiased  opinion  of  a  judicial  mind. 
Opportunely,  I  learned  that  the  Hon.  Joseph  H.  Choate 
was  then  at  his  summer  residence  at  Stockbridge,  Massachu- 
setts. Now,  I  need  offer  no  proof  that  Mr.  Choate,  like 
some  eighty  odd  millions  of  others,  had  never  heard  of  me. 
Neither  had  I  a  letter  of  introduction.  But  the  exigencies 
of  the  occasion  demanded  that  I  conjure  up  one.  Wishing 
can  do  much,  for  a  burning  desire  can  only  be  quenched  by 
performance.  The  result  was,  I  wrote  my  own  letter  of 
introduction  and  sent  it: 


Red  Lion  Inn, 

Stockbridge,  Mass. 
August  18,  1906. 
Hon.  Joseph  H.  Choate, 

Stockbridge,  Massachusetts. 
Dear  Sir:  — 

Though  I  might  present  myself  at  your  door,  armed  with  one  of  society's 
unfair  skeleton-keys  —  a  letter  of  introduction  —  I  prefer  to  approach  you 
as  I  now  do:  simply  as  a  young  man  who  honestly  feels  entitled  to  at  least 
five  minutes  of  your  time,  and  as  many  minutes  more  as  you  care  to  grant 
because  of  your  interest  in  the  subject  to  be  discussed. 

I  look  to  you  at  this  time  for  your  opinion  as  to  the  value  of  some  ideas 
of  mine,  and  the  feasibility  of  certain  schemes  based  on  them. 

A  few  months  ago  I  talked  with  President  Hadley  of  Yale,  and  briefly  cut- 
lined  my  plans.  He  admitted  that  many  of  them  seemed  feasible  and  would, 
if  carried  out,  add  much  to  the  svim-total  of  human  happiness.  His  only 
criticism  was  that  they  were  "too  comprehensive." 

Not  until  I  have  staggered  an  imagination  of  the  highest  type  will  I  ad- 
mit that  I  am  trying  to  do  too  much.  Shoiold  you  refuse  to  see  me,  believe 
me,  when  I  tell  you  that  you  will  still  be,  as  you  are  at  this  moment,  the  un- 
conscious possessor  of  my  sincere  respect. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  285 

Business  engagements  necessitate  my  leaving  here  early  on  Monday  next. 
Should  you  care  to  communicate  with  me,  word  sent  in  care  of  this  hotel 
will  reach  me  promptly. 

Yours  very  truly, 
Cliffoiu)  W.  Beers. 


Within  an  hour  I  had  received  the  following  reply: 


Stockbridge,  Mass., 

Friday  evening. 
Clifford  W.  Beers,  Esq., 
Dear  Sir:  — 

Your  note  of  to-day  rec'd.     I  will  see  you  here  for  a  few  minutes  to-mor- 
row morning  at  ten  o'clock. 

Yours  truly, 

Joseph  H.  Choate. 


The  next  morning  at  ten  o'clock,  the  door,  whose  lock  I 
had  picked  with  a  pen,  opened  before  me  and  I  was  ushered 
into  the  presence  of  Mr.  Choate.  He  was  graciousness 
itself  —  but  pointed  significantly  at  a  heap  of  unanswered 
correspondence  lying  before  him.  I  took  the  hint  and  within 
ten  minutes  briefly  outlined  my  purpose.  After  pronouncing 
my  project  a  "commendable  one,"  Mr.  Choate  offered  the 
suggestion  that  produced  results.  Said  he:  "If  you  wiU 
submit  your  ideas  in  writing  I  shall  be  glad  to  read  your 
manuscript  and  assist  you  in  any  way  I  can.  To  fully  con- 
sider your  scheme  would  require  several  hours,  and  busy  men 
cannot  very  well  give  you  so  much  time.  What  they  can 
do  is  to  read  your  manuscript  during  their  leisure  moments." 

Thus  it  was  that  Mr.  Choate,  by  granting  the  inter- 
view, contributed  to  an  earlier  fruition  of  my  plans.  One  week 
later  I  began  the  composition  of  this  book.     My  action  was 


286  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

unpremeditated,  as  my  quitting  Boston  for  less  attractive 
Worcester  proves.  That  very  day,  finding  myself  with  a 
day  and  a  half  of  leisure  before  me,  I  decided  to  tempt  the 
Muse  and  compel  myself  to  prove  that  my  pen  was,  in  truth, 
"the  tongue  of  a  ready  writer."  A  stranger  in  the  city,  I 
went  to  a  school  of  stenography  and  there  secured  the  ser- 
vices of  a  young  man  who,  though  inexperienced  in  his  art, 
was  more  skilled  in  catching  thoughts  as  they  took  wing  than 
I  was  in  the  art  of  setting  them  free.  Except  in  the  writing 
of  one  or  two  conventional  business  letters,  never  before 
had  I  dictated  to  a  stenographer.  After  I  had  startled  him 
into  an  attentive  mood  by  briefly  outlining  my  past  career 
and  present  purpose,  I  worked  without  any  definite  plan  or 
brief,  or  reference  to  data.  My  narrative  was  therefore 
digressive  and  only  roughly  chronological.  But  it  served 
to  get  my  material  before  my  own  eyes  for  future  shaping. 
At  this  task  I  hammered  away  three  or  four  hours  a  day  for 
a  period  of  five  weeks. 

It  so  happened  that  Mr.  Choate  arrived  at  the  same  hotel 
on  the  same  day  with  myself,  so  that  some  of  the  toil  he  had 
inspired  went  on  in  his  proximity,  if  not  in  his  presence; 
but  I  studiously  kept  out  of  his  sight,  lest  he  think  me  a 
"crank"  on  the  subject  of  reform,  bent  on  persecuting  his 
leisure. 

As  the  work  progressed  my  facility  increased  —  in  fact,  I 
soon  called  in  an  additional  stenographer  to  help  in  the  snar- 
ing of  my  flying  thoughts.  This  excessive  productivity  caused 
me  to  pause  and  again  to  diagnose  my  condition.  I  could 
not  fail  now  to  recognize  in  myself  symptoms  hardly  dis- 
tinguishable from  those  which  had  obtained  eight  months 
earlier  when  it  had  been  deemed  expedient  temporarily  to 
restrict  my  freedom.  But  I  had  grown  wise  in  adversity. 
Rather  than  interrupt  my  manuscript  short  of  completion  I 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  287 

decided  to  avail  myself  of  a  vacation  that  v^as  due,  and  re- 
main without  the  borders  of  my  native  State  —  this,  so  that 
well-meaning  but  perhaps  over-zealous  relatives  might  be 
spared  unnecessary  anxiety,  and  I  myself  be  spared  pos- 
sible unwarranted  restrictions.  I  was  by  no  means  certain 
as  to  the  degree  of  mental  excitement  that  would  result  from 
such  continuous  mental  application;  nor  did  I  much  care,  so 
long  as  I  accomplished  my  task.  However,  as  I  knew  that 
"possession  is  nine  points  of  the  law,"  I  decided  to  main- 
tain my  advantage  by  remaining  in  my  literary  fortress.  And 
my  resolve  was  further  strengthened  by  certain  cherished 
sentiments  expressed  by  John  Stuart  Mill  in  his  essay  "On 
Liberty,"  —  an  essay  which  I  have  read  and  re-read  with 
an  interest  born  of  experience. 

At  last  the  draft  was  completed.  After  a  timely  remit- 
tance (for,  in  strict  accordance  with  the  traditions  of  the  craft, 
I  had  exhausted  my  financial  resources)  I  started  for  home 
—  with  a  sigh  of  relief.  For  months  I  had  been  under  the 
burden  of  a  conscious  obligation.  My  memory,  stored  with 
information  which,  if  rightly  used,  could,  I  believed,  brighten 
unhappy  lives,  was  to  me  as  a  basket  of  eggs  which  it  was  my 
duty  to  balance  on  a  head  whose  poise  was  none  too  certain. 
One  by  one,  during  the  preceding  five  weeks,  I  had  gently 
lifted  each  thought  from  its  resting-place,  until  my  worri- 
some burden  had  been  so  shifted  as  to  admit  of  its  being 
imposed  upon  the  public  conscience. 

After  I  had  lived  over  again  the  trials  and  the  tortures 
of  my  unhappiest  years  —  which  was  of  course  necessary  in 
plowing  and  harrowing  a  memory,  happily  retentive  —  the 
completion  of  the  draft  left  me  exhausted.  But  after  a  trip 
to  New  York,  whither  I  went  to  convince  my  employers 
that  I  should  be  granted  a  further  leave-of-absence,  I  re- 
sumed work.     The  ground  for  this  added  favor  was  that  my 


288  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

manuscript  was  too  crude  to  submit  to  any  but  intimate  ac- 
quaintances. Knowing  perhaps  that  a  business  man  with 
a  literary  bee  buzzing  in  his  ear  is,  for  the  time,  no  business 
man  at  all,  my  employers  readily  agreed  that  I  should  do  as 
I  pleased  during  the  month  of  October.  They  also  believed 
me  entitled  to  the  favor,  recognizing  the  force  of  my  belief 
that  I  had  a  high  obligation  to  discharge. 

It  was  under  the  family  roof-tree  that  I  now  set  up  my 
literary  shop.  Nine  months  earlier  an  unwonted  interest 
in  literature  and  reform  had  sent  me  to  an  asylum.  That  I 
should  now  in  my  own  home  be  able  to  work  out  my  destiny 
without  unduly  disturbing  the  peace  of  mind  of  relatives  was 
a  considerable  satisfaction.  In  the  very  room  where,  during 
June,  1900,  my  reason  had  forsaken  me,  I  re-dictated  my 
account  of  that  reason's  experiences.  It  was  concerning  this 
draft  that  I  received  a  good  while  afterward  the  first  of  the 
two  letters  from  Professor  William  James  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, which  appear  in  the  Introduction  to  this  book. 

My  lea ve-of- absence  ended,  I  resimied  my  travels  eagerly; 
for  I  wished  to  cool  my  brain  by  daily  contact  with  the  more 
prosaic  minds  of  men  of  business.  I  went  South.  For  a 
time  I  banished  all  thoughts  of  my  book  and  project.  But 
after  some  months  of  this  change  of  occupation,  which  I 
thoroughly  enjoyed,  I  found  leisure  in  the  course  of  wide 
travels  to  take  up  the  work  of  revision.  My  hours  of  leisure 
I  devoted  more,  however,  to  reading  than  to  writing.  The 
"excess  baggage"  which  at  times  I  had  to  pay,  was  occa- 
sioned by  what  I  irreverently  called  "several  pounds  of  rhet- 
oric." For,  though  Professor  James  had  paid  me  the 
compliment  of  advising  me  not  to  re-write  my  story,  I  fear 
his  advice  must  have  been  prompted  by  a  doubt  as  to  my 
ability  to  improve  my  composition,  rather  than  the  convic- 
tion that  my  crude  draft  was  an  excellent  performance. 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  289 

That  draft  I  submitted  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
minds  (in  accordance  with  Mill's  dictum:  that  only  in  that 
way  can  the  truth  be  obtained).  And  it  is  at  this  point  in 
my  narrative,  rather  than  in  the  dusty  corners  of  the  usual 
preface,  that  I  wish  to  express  my  obligation  to  one  critic 
and  helper  —  my  former  school-fellow,  Mr.  Herbert  Wescott 
Fisher.  It  was  he  who  led  me  to  see  my  need  of  technical 
training,  neglected  in  earlier  years.  To  be  exact,  however, 
I  must  confess  that  I  read  rather  than  studied  rhetoric. 
Close  application  to  its  rules  served  only  to  discourage  me, 
so  I  but  lazily  skimmed  these  worthy  works.  But  my  re- 
discovered friend  did  more  than  direct  me  to  sources.  He 
proved  to  be  the  kindly  mean,  between  the  two  extremes 
of  stranger  and  intimate.  I  was  a  prophet  not  without  honor 
in  his  eyes.  Upon  my  embarrassing  wealth  of  material  he 
brought  to  bear  his  practical  knowledge  of  the  workmanship 
of  writing.  My  debt  to  him,  in  which  the  reader  is  a 
sharer,  is  almost  beyond  repayment.  Scarcely  a  paragraph 
in  this  book  is  not  the  better  for  his  direct  touch.  And 
my  own  drafting  of  the  later  parts  has  been  so  improved 
by  the  practice  I  have  received  under  his  scrupulous  direction 
that  he  has  had  little  fault  to  find  with  them. 

Nothing  would  please  me  more  than  to  express  specifically 
my  indebtedness  to  many  others  who  have  assisted  me  in  the 
preparation  of  my  work.  But,  aside  from  calling  attention 
to  the  fact  that  the  managements  of  the  two  hospitals  so 
fully  discussed  have  exhibited  rare  magnanimity  (even  going 
so  far  as  to  write  letters  which  have  helped  me  in  my  work), 
and,  further,  acknowledging  anonymously  (the  list  is  too  long 
for  explicit  mention)  the  invaluable  advice  given  me  by  scien- 
tists who  have  made  my  work  authoritative,  I  must  be  content 
to  indite  an  all-embracing  acknowledgment.  Therefore,  and 
with  distinct  pleasure,  I  hereby  emphasize  the  fact  that  the 


290  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

active  encouragement  of  casual  but  trusted  acquaintances, 
the  inspiring  indifference  of  unconvinced  intimates,  and  the 
kindly  scepticism  of  indulgent  relatives,  who,  perforce,  could 
do  naught  but  obey  an  immutable  law  of  blood-related 
minds,  —  all  these  influences  conspired  to  render  more  sure 
the  accomplishment  of  my  heart's  desire. 

And  now  the  reader  nears  the  end  of  my  life-story. 
But,  before  closing  this  intimate  part  of  my  plea  for  justice 
long-delayed,  I  feel  that  it  is  my  privilege,  as  it  is  my  duty, 
to  impress  upon  the  reader  that  he  has,  unconsciously  per- 
haps, assumed  part  of  the  burden  which  in  the  very  telling 
of  my  story  I  have  shifted  to  the  shoulders  of  the  many. 
If  the  reader  does  not  now  feel  that  he  would  like  to  do 
something  to  help  those  imfortunates  for  whom  I  speak, 
then  either  I  have  failed  to  present  my  story  convincingly, 
or  the  reader's  love  of  fair  play  and  his  moral  nature  are 
of  a  false  kind. 


PART   IV 

XXXVI 

One  in  telling  such  a  story  as  mine  owes  it  to  the  public 
to  offer  a  feasible  remedy  for  the  evils  disclosed.  Especially 
is  he  under  obligation  to  the  relatives  and  friends  of  the 
insane,  for  a  description  of  heart-rending  conditions,  offered 
without  hope  of  correction,  cannot  but  be  painful  to  those 
most  vitally  interested  in  the  problem.  My  obligation  in 
mind,  I  have  spared  no  effort  to  make  this  book  authoritative. 
Alienists,  psychologists,  neurologists,  pathologists,  hospital 
officials,  practical  sociologists  and  organizers  have  been  con- 
sulted. Indeed,  as  many  as  fifty  persons,  representing  the 
more  important  activities  of  life,  have  read  my  work  —  in 
part  or  entirety  —  while  it  was  in  manuscript  or  the  form  of 
printed  proof;  and  a  goodly  number  of  this  small  army  of 
critics  and  advisers  have  found  such  delight  in  using  the 
blue  pencil  of  correction  that  I  may  now  present  my  book  and 
project  with  a  sense  of  security  which  can  come  only  to  one 
whose  work  has  been  tried  by  fire  —  in  private.  To  these 
unnamed  critics  my  debt  (and  the  reader's,  I  believe)  is 
very  great. 

By  this  time  two  paramount  questions  have  no  doubt  arisen 
in  the  mind  of  the  reader:  First,  is  there  in  the  problem  of 
managing  and  treating  the  insane  an  inherent  difficulty  which 
will  forever  prevent  the  correction  of  such  abuses  and  defi- 
ciencies as  have  been  discussed  in  this  book  ?  Second,  if  not, 
how  may  the  individual  assume  part  of  the  burden  which  in 
the  telling  of  my  story  has  been  shifted  to  the  shoulders  of 
the  many? 

291 


292  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

An  emphatic  answer  to  the  first  question  may  be  given. 
No  inherent  difficulty  stands  in  the  way  of  the  universal  cor- 
rection of  all  abuses  and  deficiencies  of  treatment  complained 
of  in  this  book  —  unless  it  be  the  inherent  apathy  of  a  pub- 
lic which  for  centuries  has  failed  to  do  its  duty  by  the  insane. 
Proof  of  the  soundness  of  this  conclusion  may  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  at  this  moment  an  encouraging  number  of  our 
hospitals  for  the  insane  are  so  ably  managed  that  abuses, 
common  in  the  poorly  managed  ones,  rarely  occur  in  institu- 
tions of  the  approved  class.  Freedom  from  the  supposedly 
inevitable  evils  complained  of  may  usually  be  traced  and 
rightly  attributed  to  the  character  and  capacity  of  the  man 
at  the  head  of  a  given  hospital.  A  high-minded,  efficient 
superintendent,  regardless  of  the  apathy  of  the  public,  the 
costly  economy  of  ill-informed  legislators,  or  inadequate, 
even  crude,  material  equipment  of  the  hospital  itself,  may 
so  conduct  his  institution  as  to  protect  his  insane  wards 
against  physical  abuse,  indignities,  and  what,  in  so  many 
cases,  amounts  to  criminal  neglect  of  patients  scarcely  able 
to  help  themselves. 

Surely  the  situation  is  by  no  means  hopeless,  so  long  as  a 
superintendent  of  the  right  type  can  (almost  single-handed) 
overcome  a  sufficient  number  of  the  inevitable  difficulties 
to  raise  the  standard  of  treatment  in  his  institution  to  a 
humane  level.  For,  if  the  efficient  few,  working  under  such 
unfavorable  conditions  as  obtain  generally  to-day,  can  con- 
vert their  respective  hospitals  into  the  semblance  of  model 
ones,  how  absurd  to  contend  that  there  can  be  found  among 
the  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  physicians  in  this 
country,  fewer  than  four  hundred  men  capable  of  assuming 
the  responsibilities  of  a  superintendency  ?  When  intelligent 
and  non-political  care  in  the  selection  of  superintendents 
shall  be  rigorously  and  universally  exercised,  then,  threats, 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  293 

curses,  camisoles,  muffs,  straps,  unwarranted  seclusion,  il- 
legal exile  and  physical  abuse  in  general  will  take  their  be- 
lated place  in  history  along  with  the  horrors  of  the  Dark  Ages. 

For  bringing  about  the  reforms  which,  of  necessity,  must 
precede  any  such  correction  of  century-old  abuses,  the  in- 
terest of  every  right-thinking  person  in  this  country  must  be 
enlisted.  Few,  indeed,  are  endowed  with  great  riches.  Few 
are  able  to  convert  their  best  impulses  into  an  acceptable 
medium  of  exchange.  But  every  man  and  woman  can  lend 
a  hand,  or  at  least  speak  a  word.  Our  subject  has  for  gen- 
erations been  neglected.  It  is  the  discussion  of  it  that  will 
create  and  mold  PubKc  Opinion,  and  Public  Opinion,  vig- 
orously expressed,  will,  more  than  any  other  factor,  tend  to 
correct  the  evils  I  have  denounced.  Has  my  story  utterly 
failed  of  its  purpose?  If  it  has  stirred  your  sympathy  it  is 
your  duty  to  give  expression  to  this  aroused  interest,  not  to 
me,  but  to  everybody  within  your  sphere  of  influence.  Con- 
tinual and  sincere  expression  will  wear  away  that  rock  of 
indifference  against  which  the  distressed  souls  and  abused 
bodies  of  the  insane  have  been  bruised  for  centuries.  Has 
my  story  —  not  as  the  story  of  my  life,  but  as  representing 
the  experiences  of  thousands  of  others  still  living  and  of 
thousands  whose  terrible  secrets  died  with  them  —  has  this 
story,  I  say,  aroused  within  you  the  healthy  desire  to  con- 
tribute at  least  your  influence  to  the  corrective  and  over- 
whelming force  of  Public  Opinion?  If  so,  your  duty  is 
plain. 

Individual  assistance  may  be  given  in  an  easy  way. 
Let  each  convinced  reader  of  this  book  be  prepared  to  send 
his  name  and  address  to  whatever  "Society,"  "Associa- 
tion" or  "Committee,"  may  be  organized  when  the  neces- 
sity for  its  existence  has  been  brought  home  to  the  public. 
These  names,  in  the  aggregate,  will  form  a  mighty  petition, 


294  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

the  force  of  which  no  Federal  or  State  official  —  or  Com- 
mittee of  Investigation,  will  care  or  dare  to  ignore.  Thus, 
for  the  first  time  in  history,  legislators  throughout  the  land 
will  have  impressed  upon  them  the  fact  that  the  pubHc 
desires  hospital  managements  to  have  support  —  such  sup- 
port as  will  enable  them  to  discharge  their  obligations 
to  the  public  —  and  discharge  them  in  a  manner  that  will 
bring  credit,  not  disgrace,  to  a  nation  distinguished  for  its 
love  of  fair  play. 

If  the  individual  may  be  enlisted  in  the  work  of  reform,  so 
may  the  Federal  Government.  I  trust  that  in  this  I  do  not 
fall  into  the  delusional  fad  which  now  seems  to  prevail  of 
turning  to  Washington  as  the  panacea  for  all  the  States' 
shortcomings.  But,  the  principal  business  and  justifica- 
tion of  government  is  the  protection  of  the  weak  against 
the  strong,  and,  naturally,  there  are  some  things  which  the 
Federal  Government  can  do  better  than  any  other  agency. 
Everyone  knows  that  through  its  Department  of  Agriculture 
this  Nation  each  year  expends  many  thousands  of  dollars  in 
economically  sound  endeavors  to  exterminate  the  parasites 
which  prey  upon  valuable  plant  and  animal  life.  To  anni- 
hilate the  gypsy-moth  in  Massachusetts  and  the  cattle- 
destroying  tick  in  Texas,  fortunes  have  been  spent.  All 
crops,  except  the  crop  upon  which  prosperity  itself  depends 
—  the  brain  crop  —  have  received,  or  are  about  to  receive, 
their  due  protection  at  the  hands  of  the  Government.  Yet 
generation  after  generation  the  health  of  men's  minds  has 
been  neglected. 

An  effective  beginning  might  be  made  if  the  Government 
would  establish  a  Federal  Commission  for  the  adequate 
statistical  investigation  of  insanity.*     Such  a  Commission, 

*  See  Appendix  III  for  quotations  from  a  report  issued  (July,  1906)  by 
the  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor  under  the  heading:  "Insane  and 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  295 

supported  by  governmental  prestige  and  having  at  its  dis- 
posal the  wonderful  machinery  of  the  Census  Bureau,  could 
secure  information  which  would  be  denied  any  private 
agency.  And  later,  similar  Commissions  representing  the 
nations  of  the  world  could  form  an  International  Commis- 
sion which  should  become  a  clearing-house  for  the  world's 
best  thought  on  the  subject  of  insanity,  its  cause,  cure,  and 
eventual  defeat  as  a  common  foe  to  mankind. 


A  permanent  agency  for  reform  and  education  in  the 
field  of  nervous  and  mental  diseases  is  one  of  the  great 
needs  of  the  day.  Such  an  agency  —  whatever  its  form  — 
could  do  in  its  own  field  what  the  National  Society  for  the 
Prevention  and  Cure  of  Tuberculosis  has  done,  and  is 
doing,  in  its  sphere  of  activity.  Though  the  improve- 
ment of  conditions  among  those  actually  insane  and  con- 
fined should  ever  be  an  important  factor  in  shaping  the 
poHcy  of  such  an  organization,  its  most  important  work 
would  be  the  waging  of  an  educative  war  against  the  pre- 
vailing ignorance  regarding  insanity.  This,  to  cure  the 
disease  by  preventing  it,  is  the  only  effective  cure  known. 
The  watchword  of  such  an  organization  might  well  be  the 
significant  phrase:  Mental  Hygiene.  Its  purpose:  the 
spreading  of  a  common-sense  gospel  of  right  thinking  in 
order  to  bring  about  right  living,  knowledge  of  which  is 
needed  by  the  public  at  large  if  the  population  of  our 
asylums  is  to  be  controlled  and  eventually  decreased.  A 
campaign  of  education,  rigorously  carried  on,  would,  in  time. 

Feeble-minded  in  Hospitals  and  Institutions,  1904."  The  compiler  of 
this  report  complains  of  the  inadequate  data  on  which  he  had  to  base  his 
conclusions. 


296  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

lead  to  the  rescue  of  thousands  who,  if  left  in  ignorance, 
must,  of  necessity,  drift  into  a  state  of  actual  and  perhaps 
incurable  insanity.  Editors,  ministers,  educators,  philan- 
thropists, and  members  of  the  medical  profession,  as  well, 
could  do  much  to  further  such  a  work  of  enlightenment. 

Having  promised  the  reader  a  "remedy,"  I  dare  to  offer 
a  definite  recommendation,  based  on  the  advice  of  interested 
supporters  who,  for  years,  have  been  actively  engaged  in 
successful  works  of  reform  and  education.  I  suggest  that  a 
"National  Committee"  (modeled  after  the  very  efficient 
"National  Child  Labor  Committee")  shall,  without  delay, 
be  brought  to  a  working  perfection.  Such  a  "Committee" 
could  co-operate  with  Federal,  State,  and  local  agencies  — 
and  do  so  in  such  a  manner  that  representative  men  and 
women  in  each  State  may,  when  it  takes  shape,  control  the 
movement  in  their  respective  communities. 

The  ramifications  of  the  proposed  organization  would 
be  so  numerous  as  not  to  admit  of  detailed  description 
here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  "National  Committee  for 
Mental  Hygiene"  (I  present  the  name  for  consideration) 
would  be  equally  the  friend  of  the  physician  and  the  patient ; 
also  the  friend  of  a  patient's  relatives,  to  whom,  when  bur- 
dened with  an  actual  or  impending  affliction,  it  would  be- 
come an  unfailing  source  of  information,  advice,  and  com- 
fort. In  a  word,  it  would  be  a  friend  to  Humanity,  for  no 
man  knows  when  he  himself  may  have  to  look  to  it  for 
assistance. 


■ff 


XXXVII 

The  history  of  the  development  of  Non-Restraint  is  in- 
tensely interesting,  but  too  long  a  story  to  admit  of  its  incor- 
poration in  this  book.  However,  the  reader  may  gain  a 
comprehensive  idea  of  the  inception  of  this  humane  principle, 
its  scientific  value  and  practicability,  if  he  will  but  turn  to 
Appendix  I  and  read  the  opinion  of  an  earnest  believer 
in  Non-Restraint,  Dr.  Charles  W.  Page,  Superintendent  of 
the  Danvers  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  at  Hathorne, 
Massachusetts.  An  active  superintendent  of  wide  experi- 
ence, he  testifies  that  since  dehberately  introducing  Non- 
Restraint,  "I  have  been  responsible  for  the  custody  and 
treatment  of  more  than  six  thousand  insane  persons,  not 
one  of  whom  was  restrained  with  mechanical  appliances  by 
my  orders  or  within  my  knowledge."  How,  then,  can  any 
superintendents,  worthy  of  support,  continue  to  use  apolo- 
getically that  cruel  method  which  they  dare  not  freely 
advocate?  The  mere  fact  that  their  attitude  is  apologetic 
proves  that  these  unprogressive  men  (to  use  a  mild  term)  can 
be  converted,  provided  Public  Opinion  will  do  its  right 
work. 

Though  the  universal  adoption  and  continued  use  of  Non- 
Restraint  will  contribute  to  the  well-being,  even  happiness, 
of  the  inmates  of  our  hospitals,  its  use  alone  cannot  materially 
decrease  the  total  number  of  insane  persons,  except  in  so  far 
as  the  resulting  recoveries  will  more  than  offset  the  average 
greater  number  of  years  a  patient  is  Ukely  to  live  in  an  insti- 
tution where  he  is  treated  kindly  and   scientifically  from 

297 


/ 


298  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

the  moment  of  commitment.  Of  course,  if,  in  a  supposedly 
humane  age,  it  is  the  poUcy  of  the  pubHc  to  treat  the  unfor- 
tunate insane  harshly,  even  brutally,  with  the  hope  of  killing 
some  and  cutting  short  the  lives  of  others,  destined  to  live 
long  under  favorable  conditions,  Restraint  is  the  method  of 
treatment  to  use,  and  the  more  cruel  and  repressive  it  is,  the 
easier  will  it  be  for  some  cold-blooded  calculator  to  prove 
that  by  its  means,  money  has  been  saved  the  State.  But 
it  will  be  at  the  cost  of  killing  many  patients  who  might 
recover;  and,  further,  such  an  accountant  in  arriving  at 
his  heartless  result  would  certainly  have  to  disregard  the 
economically  sound  law  that  it  is  cheaper  for  the  State 
to  spend  any  amount  of  money  for  the  prevention  and 
cure  of  insanity  than  it  is  to  neglect  those  threatened  or 
afflicted  with  it. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  insanity,  if  it  is  ever  to  be  con- 
quered, must  be  attacked  along  lines  not  commonly  followed 
to-day.  As  to  the  method  of  attack  to  adopt  there  can  be  no 
argument,  for  the  masters  of  medical  education  in  every 
country  on  the  continent  of  Europe  have  proved  the  prac- 
ticability and  value  of  the  plan  in  question.  What  is  needed 
in  order  to  reach  the  root  of  the  problem  of  insanity  is  the 
establishing  of  so-called  Psychiatric  or  Psychopathic  Hos- 
pitals in  connection  with  our  Medical  Schools,  —  hospitals 
wherein  nervous  and  mental  diseases  may  be  treated  in  the 
most  scientific  manner,  not  only  for  the  benefit  of  the 
patients,  but  also  for  the  benefit  of  physicians  and  stu- 
dents. What  a  leap  forward  in  humanitarian  endeavor 
it  would  be  if  each  university,  so  situated  and  organ- 
ized as  to  warrant  it,  should  have  under  its  everlasting 
protection  a  modem  Psychopathic  Hospital!  (Have  not 
seats  of  learning  outlasted  seats  of  government?)  And 
what    could    be    more   appropriate    than    the    restoration 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  299 

of  lost  reasons  under  the  hospitable  protection  of  the  very 
institutions  wherein  reason  itself  is  trained  to  do  its  right 
work  ?  Thus  will  it  become  possible  to  instruct  the  medical 
profession  generally  in  psychiatry  or  psychopathology  —  a 
branch  of  medicine  about  which  thousands  of  physicians 
know  little,  —  or,  in  many  instances,  nothing  at  all.  In 
addition,  numberless  persons  threatened  with  mental  col- 
lapse, or  actually  insane,  will  then  receive  the  benefit  of 
prompt  and  scientific  treatment  at  a  time  when  the  mental 
life  of  the  afflicted  one  hangs  in  the  balance.  Further, 
Psychopathic  Hospitals  will  enable  scientists  to  study  insan- 
ity; and  such  institutions,  by  setting  a  high  standard,  will 
soon  raise  the  standard  of  treatment  throughout  the  country. 

The  necessity  for  such  modem  hospitals  may  be  appre- 
ciated when  an  accredited  authority  in  this  country  on 
matters  pertaining  to  medical  education  (Dr.  William  H. 
Welch  of  Johns  Hopkins  University)  can  say,  as  he  did  to 
the  writer  of  this  book:  ''The  most  urgent  need  in  medical 
education  in  America,  to-day,  is  the  need  of  Psychiatric 
Clinics  (Psychopathic  Hospitals)  where  medical  students, 
and  physicians  as  well,  may  benefit  by  instruction  in  psy- 
chiatry, and  where  scientific  research  into  the  cause  and  cure 
of  insanity  may  be  carried  on  unceasingly." 

When  the  fact  is  considered  that  each  university  in  Ger- 
many, France,  Italy,  Switzerland,  Austria,  Russia,  Norway, 
Sweden,  Denmark,  Holland,  Belgium,  Brazil,  Argentine 
Republic  and  Japan,  at  the  pesent  time,  has  a  psychiatric 
clinic  under  its  own  control,  and  that  no  physician  in  most 
of  these  countries  may  practice  medicine  until  he  has  passed 
a  satisfactory  examination  in  psychiatry,  the  disgraceful 
state  of  affairs  existing  in  this,  the  richest  nation  in  the  world, 
may  be  the  more  readily  appreciated.  In  Germany  a 
system   of  state-supported   sanatoriums    has  long  been  in 


300 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 


successful  operation.  These  institutions,  however,  are  not 
open  to  those  afflicted  with  a  developed  mental  disease. 
They  are  designed  for  the  exclusive  use  of  those  threatened 
with  mental  collapse.  The  Germans  engage  in  the  rescu- 
ing of  those  threatened  with  insanity  because  they  have 
been  wise  enough  to  realize  that  it  is  cheaper  to  help  the 
individual  back  to  health  than  to  let  him  break  down  com- 
pletely and  live,  perhaps  for  years,  a  burden  on  the  State. 
In  the  hght  of  such  embarrassing  facts,  it  is  indeed 
high  time  that  the  United  States  of  America  should 
prove  itself  the  vauntedly  progressive  nation  it  is  sup- 
posed to  be,  by  taking  hold  of  the  neglected  problem 
of  insanity,  and,  through  its  several  State  Legislatures, 
bringing  into  existence  Psychopathic  Hospitals  of  the  type 
described  in  the  interesting  U.  S.  Consular  Report  on 
the  Munich  Clinic,  quoted  in  full  in  Appendix  II.  That 
the  movement  toward  the  erection  of  such  model  hos- 
pitals is  already  under  way  is  a  fact,  and  those  who  know  the 
field  predict  that  within  five  years  a  majority  of  the  States 
will  be  operating  institutions  of  the  desired  type,  and  that 
within  a  decade  no  State  will  be  without  at  least  one  Psycho- 
pathic Hospital  of  its  own.^  Thus  far,  Michigan  is  the  only 
State  in  the  Union  to  erect  a  modern  Psychopathic  Hos- 
pital. New  York,  however,  has  taken  steps  toward  the 
erection  of  one,  a  well-meant  though  totally  inadequate 
appropriation  having  been  voted  for  the  purpose.^ 

1  In  the  year  1906,  at  a  cost  of  about  $75,000,  a  hospital  of  this  type  was 
brought  under  the  control  of  the  University  Hospital  at  Ann  Arbor,  Michi- 
gan. Because  of  the  close  relations  existing  between  the  State  authorities 
and  those  of  the  University  (of  Michigan),  this  new  institution,  though 
virtually  a  part  of  the  University,  is  at  the  same  time  a  part  of  the  system 
of  State  Hospitals. 

^If   this   State   will    appropriate,  say,  Si, 000,000  instead  of   the  com- 
paratively  paltry   $300,000   already  voted,    New    York    City   will    have 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  301 

As  the  location  of  this  particular  type  of  hospital  is  of 
vital  importance,  I  shall  here  venture  to  emphasize  an 
underlying  principle  which  cannot  be  safely  ignored  when 
the  selection  of  a  site  for  such  an  institution  comes  up 
for  decision.  After  discussing  this  subject  with  alienists, 
superintendents  and  assistant  physicians  of  hospitals  for 
the  insane,  and  with  certain  recognized  authorities  on 
the  needs  of  the  insane,  I  am  led  to  the  sure  conclusion 
that  Psychopathic  Hospitals  erected  at  the  expense  of  the  State 
should  be  made  a  part  of  the  existing  hospital  system.  No 
State  Hospital  can  hope  to  fulfil  its  functions  properly  until 
it  has  under  its  control,  and  within  easy  reach  —  that  is, 
within  the  hospital  confines  —  a  separate  building  erected 
for  the  purpose  of  treating  acute  cases  of  insanity,  either 
newly-admitted  ones,  or  so-called  chronic  cases  during 
recurrent,  acute  periods  of  depression  or  excitement.  Pa- 
tients of  the  latter  class  are  numerous  in  our  large  hospitals, 
and  when  a  management,  because  of  inadequate  equipment, 
has  to  treat  such  cases  in  the  wards  with  patients  less  dis- 
turbed, a  great  injustice  is  done  not  only  to  the  "acute  cases" 
but  to  all  other  patients  who  are  forced  to  live  in  the  same 
ward  with  them.  Failure  on  the  part  of  those  in  authority 
to  provide  each  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane  with  a  Psycho- 
pathic Hospital  or  PaviHon  (by  which  is  meant  a  separate 
building,  or  group  of  small  buildings)  will  bring  about 
a  result  which  it  is  painful  even  to  contemplate ;  for  the  mo- 
ment the  Psychopathic  Hospital  is  set  apart  as  a  favored  type 
of  institution,  that  moment  will  the  State  Hospitals  or  asy- 
lums, so-called,  sink  —  in  the  estimation  of  the  public  —  to 
a  level  far  below  the  level  of  the  worst  managed  asylum 
at  present  in  existence.     To  adopt  a  policy  which  would 

what  it  so  richly  deserves  —  a  modern  hospital  as  good   as  the  one  at 
Munich. 


302  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

widen  the  already  great  gulf  that  exists  between  gen- 
eral hospitals  and  asylums  would  undo  in  a  day  the  work 
of  a  century.  I  have  criticised  with  a  considerable,  yet  mer- 
ited, severity,  our  State  Hospitals  for  the  Insane;  neverthe- 
less, these  two  hundred  and  odd  hospitals,  erected  at  a  cost 
to  the  Nation  of  over  one  hundred  milHons  of  dollars,  con- 
stitute the  nucleus  of  what  will,  in  time,  —  if  rightly  man- 
aged —  become  the  most  perfect  hospital  system  in  the  world. 
Continue  to  force  the  several  managements  to  minister  to 
the  insane  with  hospitals  which  lack  that  most  essential 
remedial  feature,  the  Psychopathic  Pavilion,  and  the  dread 
of  insanity  and  asylums  which  of  late  years  (I  am  thankful 
to  be  able  to  record)  has  grown  noticeably  and  hope- 
fully weaker,  will  not  only  be  perpetuated  —  it  will  be 
cruelly  and  needlessly  intensified !  But  let  the  many  States 
in  the  Union  which  shall  erect  Psychopathic  Hospitals 
during  the  ensuing  decade  make  a  beginning  by  adding  to 
our  existing  asylums  adequate  treatment  divisions,  and  the 
present  dread  of  insanity,  and  the  dread  of  asylums,  will,  in 
a  relatively  short  time,  be  reduced  to  an  intelligent  minimum. 
Then  ordinary  asylums,  instead  of  continuing  to  rank  as 
mere  prison-houses,  will  rise  to  the  level  of  the  best  of  our 
general  hospitals,  and  eventually  they  will  become  a  source 
of  justifiable  pride  to  the  Nation. 

I  would  not  have  it  thought  that  I  favor  the  building  of 
Psychopathic  Hospitals  only  where  they  may  be  brought 
under  the  control  of  a  state  hospital  already  established. 
My  advice  in  that  connection  had  to  do  only  with  appropri- 
ations that  shall  be  made  during  the  next  few  years  by  State 
Legislatures.  When  it  comes  to  philanthropic  work  that 
may  be  done  by  individuals  of  vast  wealth,  or  by  bodies  of 
public-spirited  men  and  women  for  the  benefit  of  their  re- 
spective communities,  the  suggestion  I  have  to  make  is  quite 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  303 

different.  At  first,  money  secured  from  private  sources 
should  go  toward  the  building  and  endowing  of  Psycho- 
pathic Hospitals,  which  preferably  may  be  brought  under 
the  control  of  those  universities  which  have  medical  de- 
partments. 

Cities  where  there  are  universities,  and  the  larger  and 
wealthier  cities  throughout  the  country,  will  before  long  have 
such  institutions;  but  the  smaller  cities  —  even  some  having 
from  one  hundred  to  three  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  — 
will  be  unable  to  secure  or  maintain  independent  Psycho- 
pathic Hospitals.  As  each  community  owes  it  to  itself  to 
make  provision  for  the  prompt  treatment  of  cases  of  incipient 
insanity,  and  thus  spare  the  individual  the  ordeal  of  commit- 
ment as  an  incompetent,  it  is  fortunate  that  relief  is  at 
hand  for  such  cities  as  cannot  maintain  a  modem  Psycho- 
pathic Hospital.  Here  the  so-called  General  Hospital  may 
be  put  to  full  use.  Separate  buildings,  or  pavilions,  may 
be  erected  and  maintained  at  comparatively  slight  cost,  as 
has  already  been  proved  by  the  success  of  the  Psychopathic 
Hospital  at  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan.  That  is  to  say,  for  con- 
siderably less  than  $100,000  an  efficient  department  of  Men- 
tal and  Nervous  diseases  may  be  organized  and  brought 
under  the  control  of  any  well  managed  General  Hos- 
pital. Though  there  is  but  one  General  Hospital  in  the 
country  where  this  problem  has  been  worked  out,  the  results 
of  what  five  years  ago  was  an  experiment  have  justified  the 
rather  startling  venture  made  by  the  pioneer  in  this  impor- 
tant work.^  Dr.  J.  Montgomery  Mosher,  Speciahst  in  Ner- 
vous and  Mental  Diseases  at  the  Albany  Hospital,  Albany, 

'  At  Bellevue  Hospital  (New  York  City)  cases  of  insanity  are  received  and 
held  pending  examination  and  transfer.  As  few  patients  remain  longer 
than  five  days  in  this  Psychopathic  Ward,  the  ward  becomes  little  more  than 
a  clearing-house  for  trouble  —  not  an  agency  for  cure. 


304  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

N.  Y.,  is  the  man  who  has  had  the  courage  and  good  sense 
to  go  ahead  and  prove  that  a  General  Hospital  should  and 
can  receive  and  treat  mental  diseases  as  successfully  as  the 
diseases  which  are  now  treated  without  question  in  such 
institutions.  In  Pavilion  F,  at  the  Albany  Hospital,  remark- 
able results  have  been  obtained  during  the  five  years  it  has 
been  in  operation.  This  is  proved  by  a  passage  from  an 
address  by  Dr.  Mosher  delivered  before  the  34th  National 
Conference  of  Charities  and  Corrections  at  Minneapolis, 
Minnesota,  June  i8th,  1907.     He  says: 

"From  February  i8th,  1902,  the  day  of  the  first  admission, 
to  February  28th,  1907,  one  thousand  thirty  patients  have  en- 
tered the  building  (Pavilion  F).  Of  these  five  hundred  and 
ninety-six  have  returned  to  their  homes  recovered  and  im- 
proved ;  three  hundred  and  sixteen  have  remained  stationary, 
and  eighty-six  have  died.  Two  hundred  and  forty-five 
have  been  transferred  to  institutions  for  the  insane;  of  these, 
one  hundred  and  twenty-six  were  sent  to  Pavilion  F  for 
detention  during  the  legal  proceedings,  and  one  hundred  and 
eighteen  were  committed  after  a  period  of  observation.  It 
thus  appears  that  nine  hundred  and  five  patients  have  been 
under  treatment  without  legal  process,  one  hundred  and 
eighteen  of  whom  it  became  necessary  to  commit  later  to 
institutions  for  the  insane. 

"If  this  special  provision  for  the  treatment  of  the  mentally 
deranged  had  not  been  made  in  the  Albany  Hospital,  then 
these  nine  hundred  and  eight  patients  would  either  have  had 
to  be  improperly  treated  at  home,  or  would  have  been  com- 
mitted after  a  probably  harmful  development  of  the  disease. 
It  is  impossible  to  judge  how  many  have  been  saved  from  an 
unnecessary  commitment," 

I  urge  the  reader  to  turn  to  Appendix  IV  where  he 
will  find  Dr.  Mosher's  address  in  full.     It  will  prove  that 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  305 

General  Hospitals  throughout  the  country  should  begin 
to  receive  and  treat  nervous  and  mental  diseases  as  is 
now  being  done  with  success  at  the  General  Hospital  at 
Albany. 


XXXVIII 

Given  Psychopathic  Hospitals  and  "Mental  Wards"  or 
"Pavilions"  at  our  General  Hospitals,  there  still  remains 
another  type  of  institution  to  be  added  if  patients  with  a 
chance  for  recovery  are  to  receive  the  treatment  they  deserve. 
Statistics  show  that  twenty  per  cent  of  those  who  recover 
from  an  attack  of  insanity  recover  after  having  been  con- 
fined in  a  hospital  or  asylum  for  a  year  or  more.  Obviously, 
recoverable  cases  cannot  remain  for  that  length  of  time  in  a 
Psychopathic  Hospital  or  in  a  "Mental  Ward"  in  a  General 
Hospital.  The  hospital  or  "Pavilion"  with  a  Hmited  num- 
ber of  beds  (and  it  will  be  many  years  before  there  are  a 
sufficient  number  of  Psychopathic  Hospitals  to  supply  the 
demand  for  accommodations)  must,  of  necessity,  keep  its 
population  moving  if  the  acute  cases  occurring  every  day 
are  to  be  received  and  given  treatment  at  a  time  when  the 
lives  —  mental  lives,  at  least  —  of  the  afilicted  ones  hang  in 
the  balance.  To  make  room  for  new  cases,  the  hopeful 
and  convalescent  cases  must  be  transferred  to  the  homes  of 
the  patients  —  there  to  disorganize  and  distress  the  house- 
holds; or  they  must  be  transferred  to  an  asylum;  or,  provided 
the  expense  can  be  borne,  transferred  to  a  private  hospital 
or  sanatorium.  This  state  of  affairs  lays  bare  a  fault  which 
should  be  corrected  without  delay.  It  is  evident,  therefore, 
that  an  intermediate  type  of  institution  state-supported, 
co-operatively  managed,  or  endowed,  should  be  brought 
into  the  field. 

Here   the   model  sanatorium  —  a  place   of  considerable 

306 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  307 

freedom  —  should  intervene.  In  time  the  several  States 
(following  the  enhghtened  example  of  Germany)  will 
no  doubt  erect  such  institutions,  but  so  much  remains 
to  be  done  by  the  States  in  the  way  of  improving  existing 
State  Hospitals  and  asylums  that  the  immediate  creation  of 
these  indispensable  adjuncts  to  a  perfect  hospital  system 
must  be  undertaken  by  public- spirited  citizens,  possessed  of 
wealth  and  the  impulse  to  spend  it  for  the  good  of  those 
less  fortunate.  If  one  man,  Mr.  D.  O.  Mills  of  New 
York,  may  erect  and  operate,  at  a  fair  return  on  his  in- 
vestment, hotels  which  provide  self-respecting  poor  with 
wholesome  surroundings  and  good  food,  and  still  charge 
only  nominal  rates  for  the  accommodations,  why  may 
not  philanthropy  and  business  be  likewise  combined  for 
the  benefit  of  those  threatened  with  nervous  or  mental 
collapse  ?  This  class  would  include  those  who,  after  treat- 
ment in  a  Psychopathic  Hospital,  must  continue  treatment 
of  some  kind  for  the  few  months  which  will  elapse  be- 
fore they  are  again  in  condition  to  engage  in  gainful 
occupation.  In  suggesting  that  the  "Mills  Hotel  Plan" 
be  applied  to  the  sanatorium  field,  I  think  I  am  on  safe 
ground;  and  I  trust  that  individuals  of  wealth  will  turn 
their  attention  to  a  field  so  rich  in  possibilities  that  it  may  be 
worked  at  a  profit  that  can  be  measured  not  only  in  money, 
but  in  service  to  mankind. 

Perhaps,  if  I  give  an  added  chapter  of  my  experiences, 
those  in  a  position  to  correct  a  great  evil  will  be  the  more 
ready  to  undertake  the  work. 


XXXIX 

The  particular  evil  I  have  referred  to  at  the  end  of  the 
preceding  chapter  is  the  heartless  way  in  which  many  owners 
of  private  hospitals  and  sanatoriums  take  advantage  of 
people  in  distress.  Knowing  that  the  relatives  of  an 
insane  person  will  seldom  place  him  in  a  public  insti- 
tution until  their  resources  are  completely  exhausted,  these 
owners  proceed  to  drive  almost  as  sharp  a  bargain  as  they 
would  were  they  trading  horses  with  a  known  trickster. 
The  desire  to  succor  distressed  relatives  is  an  emotion 
scarcely  known  to  this  type  of  man.  CommerciaHsm,  not 
philanthropy,  is  his  passion.  "Pay  the  price  or  place 
your  relative  in  a  public  institution!"  is  the  burden  of  his 
discordant  song  before  commitment.  "Pay,  or  get  out!"  is 
his  jarring  refrain  when  satisfied  that  he  has  exhausted  the 
family  resources. 

Though  I  am  well  within  my  rights  in  criticising  the  qual- 
ity of  heart  exhibited  by  typical  owners  of  such  institutions 
as  are  run  for  personal  gain,  it  is  only  fair  to  point  out  that 
this  hardness  of  heart  of  the  individual  is  but  a  chip  off  the 
stumbHng-block  of  pubHc  apathy.  So  long  as  the  public 
refuses  or  neglects  to  establish  hospitals  where  the  insane 
may  receive  the  best  of  treatment  at  minimum  cost,  is  it 
reasonable  to  expect  individuals  to  invest  fortunes  in  a  re- 
sponsible and  irksome  work  unless  they  see  the  chance  to 
extort  an  unfair  return?  Assuredly  not.  In  fact,  these 
owners,  by  much  and  continued  thought,  have  tricked  them- 
selves into  the  belief  that  they  are  indeed  public  benefactors 

308 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  309 

—  wherein  they  are  not  entirely  wrong,  for  they  have,  in  a 
measure,  filled  the  gap  that  exists  in  our  hospital  system  of 
to-day. 

Do  you  imagine  that  I  speak  with  undue  severity  ?  Let 
me  then  refer  to  certain  hitherto  unrecorded  incidents  in  my 
own  life.  They  occurred  while  I  was  an  inmate  of  a  private 
sanatorium  of  the  type  condemned.  The  institution  in 
question,  though  by  no  means  deserving  of  rank  among  the 
best,  is  one  of  the  largest  of  its  kind  in  this  country.  From 
a  modest  beginning,  made  not  many  years  ago,  it  has  en- 
joyed a  mushroom  growth,  and  to-day  harbors  about  two 
hundred  and  fifty  unfortunates.  Its  material  equipment  is 
cheap.  It  is  composed  of  a  dozen  or  more  small  frame  build- 
ings, suggestive  of  a  mill  settlement.  Outside  the  limits  of 
a  city,  and  in  a  State  where  there  is  no  ofiicial  supervision 
worth  mentioning,  the  owner  of  this  little  settlement  of  woe 
has  erected  a  nest  of  veritable  fire-traps.  Within  these  the 
most  helpless  of  all  mankind  are  forced  to  risk  lives  which 
may,  or  may  not,  again  be  of  real  value.  This  is  a  dangerous 
economy,  but  it  is  of  course  necessary  if  the  owner  is  surely 
to  grind  out  an  exorbitant  interest  on  his  investment. 

The  same  spirit  of  economy  pervades  the  entire  institu- 
tion. Its  worst  manifestation  is  in  the  employment  of 
the  meanest  type  of  attendant.  In  a  State  Hospital  for  the 
Insane  there  is  perhaps  some  slight  excuse  for  limiting  the 
remuneration  of  attendants,  for  there  the  appropriation  for 
maintenance  per  week  is  limited  usually  to  three  or  four 
dollars  for  each  of  the  patients.  But,  in  private  sana- 
toriums,  where  the  average  minimum  charge  per  week  is, 
as  a  rule,  twenty  or  twenty-five  dollars,  and  where  many 
patients  pay  forty  or  fifty  dollars  or  more,  there  is  no  excuse 
for  an  economy  so  pernicious.  The  owner  of  such  a  gold 
mine  cannot  honestly  plead  that  a  lack  of  funds  forces 


3IO  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

him  to  employ  attendants  who  are  willing  to  work  for  a 
paltry  eighteen  dollars  a  month  —  $4.50  per  week  —  a  wage 
which  kitchen  servants  frequently  refuse  to  accept.  Occasion- 
ally a  competent  attendant  consents  to  work  here  when  there 
is  a  scarcity  of  profitable  employment  elsewhere.  Witness 
the  young  man  who,  shortly  after  my  arrival  at  this  private 
institution,  providentially  (for  me)  sought  and  secured  a 
position.  He  received  only  eighteen  dollars  a  month  at  the 
beginning;  the  sixth  and  last  month  of  his  employment  there 
he  received  the  same  meager  wage.  This  man,  so  long  as 
he  remained  in  the  good  graces  of  the  owner-superintendent, 
was  admittedly  one  of  the  best  attendants  he  had  ever  had. 
Yet  aside  from  a  five-dollar  bill  which  a  relative  had  sent  me 
at  Christmas  and  which  I  had  refused  to  accept  because  of 
my  belief  that  it,  as  well  as  my  relatives,  was  counterfeit  — 
aside  from  that,  this  competent  attendant  and  charitable 
friend  received  no  additional  rewards.  His  chief  reward  lay  in 
his  consciousness  of  the  fact  that  he  was  protecting  me  against 
injustices  which  surely  would  have  been  visited  upon  me  had 
he  quitted  his  position  and  left  me  to  the  mercies  of  the  owner 
and  his  ignorant  assistants.  To-day,  with  deep  apprecia- 
tion, I  often  contrast  the  treatment  I  received  at  his  hands 
with  that  which  I  suffered  during  the  three  weeks  preceding 
his  appearance  on  the  scene.  During  that  period,  not  fewer 
than  seven  attendants  contributed  to  my  misery.  Though 
some  of  them  were  perhaps  decent  enough  fellows  outside 
a  sick-room,  not  one  had  more  right  to  minister  to  a  man 
in  my  condition  than  has  a  butcher  to  perform  delicate 
operations  in  surgery. 

The  two  who  first  attended  me  did  not  strike  me  with 
their  fists  or  even  threaten  to  do  so;  but  their  unconscious 
lack  of  consideration  for  my  comfort  and  peace  of  mind 
was  torture.     They  were  typical  eighteen-doUar-a-month  at- 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  311 

tendants.  Another  attendant  of  the  same  sort,  on  one  occa- 
sion, cursed  me  with  a  degree  of  brutaUty  which  I  prefer  not 
to  recall,  much  less  record.  And  a  few  days  later  the  climax 
was  appropriately  capped  when  still  another  eighteen-doUar- 
a-month  attendant  perpetrated  an  outrage  which  a  sane 
man  would  have  resented  to  the  point  of  homicide.  He  was 
a  man  of  the  coarsest  type.  His  hands  would  have  done 
credit  to  a  longshoreman  —  fingers  knotted  and  nearly  twice 
the  normal  size.  Because  I  refused  to  obey  a  peremptory 
command,  and  this  at  a  time  when  I  habitually  refused  on 
pain  even  of  imagined  torture  to  obey  or  to  speak,  this  brute 
not  only  cursed  me  with  abandon,  he  deliberately  spat  upon 
me.  I  was  a  mental  incompetent,  but  like  many  others  in 
a  similar  position,  I  was,  both  by  antecedents  and  by  train- 
ing, a  gentleman.  Vitriol  could  not  have  seared  my  flesh 
more  deeply  than  the  venom  of  this  human  viper  stung  my 
soul!  Yet,  as  I  was  rendered  speechless  by  delusions,  I  could 
offer  not  so  much  as  a  word  of  protest.  I  trust  that  it  is  not 
now  too  late,  however,  to  protest  in  behalf  of  the  thousands 
of  outraged  patients  in  private  and  State  hospitals  whose 
mute  submission  to  such  indignities  has  never  been  recorded. 

If  the  owner-superintendent  of  this  particular  sanatorium 
were  brought  to  book  for  such  offenses,  what  excuse  would 
he  offer?  A  hundred  to  one  he  would  enter  the  evasive 
plea  that  such  outrages  were  committed  not  only  without 
his  consent  but  without  his  suspicion.  That  he  did  not 
expressly  countenance  such  practices  I  concede.  As  to  his 
not  suspecting  that  ignorant,  untrained,  ill-paid  attendants 
do  continually  outrage  the  finer  feelings  of  patients,  I  im- 
peach the  truth  and  the  sincerity  of  such  a  denial.  These 
owners  know  what  must  be  the  natural  consequences  of  their 
niggardly  policy. 

Of  their  readiness  to  employ  inferior  attendants,  I  shall 


312  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

offer  a  striking  illustration.  The  attendant  who  acted  as 
my  protector  at  this  sanatorium  has  given  me  an  affidavit 
embodying  certain  facts  which,  of  course,  I  could  not  have 
known  at  the  time  of  their  occurrence.  The  gist  of  this 
sworn  statement  is  as  follows :  One  day  a  man  —  seemingly 
a  tramp  —  approached  the  main  building  at  the  sanatorium 
and  inquired  for  the  owner.  He  soon  found  him,  talked 
with  him  a  few  minutes,  and  an  hour  or  so  later  he  was  sit- 
ting at  the  bedside  of  an  old  and  infirm  man.  This  aged 
patient  had  recently  been  committed  to  the  institution  by 
relatives  who  had  labored  under  the  common  delusion  that 
the  payment  of  a  considerable  sum  of  money  each  week 
would  insure  kindly  treatment.  When  this  tramp-attend- 
ant first  appeared,  all  his  visible  worldly  possessions  were 
contained  in  a  small  bundle  which  he  carried  under  his  arm. 
So  filthy  were  his  person  and  his  clothes  that  he  received  a 
compulsory  bath  and  another  suit  before  being  assigned 
to  duty.  He  then  began  to  earn  his  four  dollars  and  fifty 
cents  a  week  by  sitting  several  hours  a  day  in  the  room  with 
the  aged  man,  sick  unto  death.  My  informant  soon  en- 
gaged him  in  conversation.  What  facts  did  he  elicit  ?  First, 
that  the  uncouth  stranger  never  before  had  worked  as  an 
attendant,  nor  had  he  ever  so  much  as  crossed  the  threshold 
of  a  hospital.  His  last  job  had  been  as  a  member  of  a 
section-gang  on  a  railroad.  From  the  roadbed  of  a  railway 
to  the  bedside  of  a  man  about  to  die  was  indeed  a  change 
which  might  have  taxed  the  adaptabihty  of  a  more  versatile 
being.  But  as  coarse  as  he  was,  this  unkempt  novice  did 
not  abuse  his  charge,  —  except  in  so  far  as  his  inability  to 
interpret  or  anticipate  the  wants  of  the  patient  contrib- 
uted to  that  afflicted  one's  distress.  My  own  attend- 
ant, realizing  that  the  patient  in  question  was  suffering  most 
of  all  for  the  want  of  those  innumerable  attentions  which  a 


A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF  313 

trained  nurse  cannot  fail  to  bestow,  spent  a  part  of  his  time 
in  this  unhappy  room,  which  was  but  across  the  hall  from 
my  own.  The  end  soon  came.  My  attendant,  whose  ex- 
perience had  been  a  wide  one,  detected  the  unmistakable 
signs  of  impending  death.  He  forthwith  informed  the 
owner  of  the  sanatorium  that  Mr. was  in  a  dying  con- 
dition, and  urged  him  (a  doctor)  to  repair  at  once  to  the  bed- 
side of  the  patient.  The  doctor  refused  to  comply  with  the 
request  on  the  plea  that  he  was,  at  the  time,  "too  busy." 
When  at  last  he  did  visit  the  room  the  patient  was  dead. 
Then  came  the  supervisor  who  took  charge  of  the  body. 
As  it  was  being  carried  from  the  room  this  "handyman"  of 
the  owner's  said:  "There  goes  the  best  paying  patient  the 
institution  had;  the  doctor"  (meaning  the  owner)  "was 
getting  eighty-five  dollars  a  week  out  of  him."  Of  this 
sum  not  more  than  twenty  dollars  at  most  could  be  con- 
sidered as  "cost  of  maintenance."  The  remaining  sixty-five 
dollars  went  into  the  pocket  of  the  owner.  Had  the  man 
lived  for  one  year  the  owner  might  have  pocketed  as  a  profit 
(so  far  as  this  one  case  was  concerned)  the  neat  but  wicked 
sum  of  thirty-three  hundred  and  eighty  dollars.  And  what 
would  the  patient  have  received?  The  same  privilege  of 
living  in  neglect  and  dying  neglected. 

To  this  day  the  relatives  of  the  victim  of  this  outrageous 
neglect  do  not  know  of  the  injustice  that  was  done  them. 
They  believed  that  eighty-five  dollars  a  week  would  in- 
sure the  best  of  attention,  —  and  so  it  would  have  done 
had  the  trusted  owner  been  deserving  of  the  confidence 
placed  in  him.^     From  a  reliable  source  I  learn   that  the 

*  Other  instances  of  abuses  existing  in  private  hospitals  for  the  in- 
sane will  be  found  in  Appendix  V,  where  a  brief  report  appears,  written 
by  M.  Allen  Starr,  M.D.,  Professor  of  Nervous  and  Mental  Diseases  at 
Columbia  University. 


314  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

owner  of  the  run-for-gain  sanatorium  discussed,  brags  that 
his  profit  during  a  recent  year  amounted  to  $98,000.  My 
informant,  a  man  conversant  with  the  question  at  issue, 
figures  that  a  profit  of  six  dollars  a  week  from  each  pa- 
tient would  have  enabled  this  acquisitive  owner  to  make 
the  $98,000  he  professes  to  have  made.  But  let  us  cut 
the  reported  brag  in  two,  just  to  be  on  the  safe  side. 
Does  any  one  believe  that  an  inefiicient  owner  of  a  sana- 
torium deserves  to  receive  a  yearly  profit  equal  to  the 
salary  of  the  President  of  the  United  States? 

As  to  my  own  experience  at  this  institution :  during  the  first 
weeks  of  it,  my  relatives  were  obliged  to  pay  forty  dollars  a 
week  for  my  care.  Under  the  circumstances  it  was  not  an  un- 
reasonable figure  —  for,  both  by  day  and  night,  I  required 
an  attendant;  nor  do  I  even  affirm  that  the  eighty-five 
dollars  a  week,  wrung  from  the  rich  man,  was  in  itself 
exorbitant.  But  is  it  right  for  the  owner  of  a  sanatorium 
to  demand  and  accept  either  forty  or  eighty-five  dollars  a 
week,  and  then  permit  the  helpless  patient  to  be  subjected 
to  indignities  and  neglect?  I  know  of  a  sanatorium  where 
the  owner  refuses  to  take  any  patient  who  cannot  afford  to 
pay  one  hundred  dollars  a  week.  He  caters  to  the  wealthy, 
and  secures  a  sufficient  number  of  patients  to  fill  his  hospital. 
I  respect  that  man.  He  deserves  success,  for  he  gives  each 
patient  better  care  than  he  could  possibly  get  in  the  most 
self-sacrificing  household.  To  expect  him  to  reduce  his 
rates  would  be  as  unreasonable  as  to  expect  the  owner  of 
real  estate,  simply  because  a  church  or  hospital  is  to  be 
erected  thereon,  to  sell  it  below  the  market  price.  The  law 
of  supply  and  demand  (together  with  a  culpable  lack  of 
State  supervision)  regulates  the  rates  now  charged  by  owners 
of  sanatoriums.  Therefore  the  lowering  of  rates  to  a  fair 
figure  can  be  brought  about  only  when  Psychopathic  Hos- 


A  MIND   THAT  FOUND   ITSELF  315 

pitals  and  co-operative,  or  endowed,  sanatoriums  shall 
have  entered  the  field  of  competition.  That  such  institu- 
tions will  reduce  the  prevailing  exorbitant  charges,  and 
force  the  existing  type  of  owner  to  treat  his  patients  and 
their  relatives  fairly,  is  at  least  indicated,  if  not  proved,  by 
the  fact  that  the  Psychopathic  Hospital  at  Munich,  Ger- 
many, —  the  finest  of  its  kind  in  the  world  —  charges  for 
the  most  scientific  treatment  known,  not  more  than  $16.66 
a  week,  and  as  low  as  $9.52;  with  a  minimum  of  $4.97  per 
week  for  patients  unable  to  pay  more.  And  as  stated  in 
the  Consular  Report  (Appendix  II)  "the  treatment  and 
medical  services  are  precisely  the  same  to  all,  according  to 
condition  and  necessities." 

Not  so,  however,  in  a  majority  of  private  institutions. 
The  quality  of  the  food,  for  instance,  is  Hkely  to  vary  with 
the  fee  paid.  The  poorer  patients  are,  in  a  way,  the  buz- 
zards of  the  flock.  The  coarsest  cuts  are  their  accustomed 
portion.  To  this  the  attendants  themselves  can  testify, 
for  they  are  often  forced  to  eat  veritable  husks  —  the  crumbs 
which  fall  from  the  owner's  table.  In  my  opinion  the 
food  served  at  the  State  Hospital  was  far  better  than  that 
served  to  many  patients  at  this  run-for-profit  sanatorium: 
and  the  food  served  at  the  large  private  hospital,  conducted 
not  for  personal  profit,  was,  on  the  whole,  as  good  as  any 
man  might  need  or  desire. 

This  comparison  is  illuminating.  The  owner  of  a  pri- 
vate sanatorium  is  but  human,  and  it  is  extremely  difiicult 
for  him  to  see  any  advantage  in  supplying  food  of  quality 
or  variety,  when,  by  so  doing,  his  profit  will  be  decreased  by 
thousands  of  dollars  during  a  single  year.  The  manage- 
ment of  an  incorporated  and  endowed  institution,  whose 
only  possible  profit  is  to  be  found  in  their  agreed  salaries, 
would  not  be  hkely  to  impose  in  this  way  upon  their  insane 


3i6  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

charges  and  patrons.  No  corrupting  desire  for  gain  would 
influence  them.  It  is  highly  desirable,  therefore,  that  all 
private  hospitals  for  the  insane  should  at  once  be  brought 
under  rigorous  State  supervision,  requiring  that  such  insti- 
tutions be  duly  incorporated  under  laws  which  will  protect 
patients  against  abuse  and  patrons  against  extortion,  —  at 
the  same  time  permitting  a  trustworthy  owner  to  make  a 
fair  profit  on  his  investment.  Or,  better  still  —  and  even- 
tually I  hope  to  behold  it  —  let  there  be  no  hospitals  at  all 
run  for  private  gain.  I  do  not  advocate  a  hasty  change. 
It  will  be  years  before  there  are  in  operation  a  sufiicient 
number  of  Psychopathic  Hospitals,  "mental  wards"  in 
General  Hospitals,  and  co-operative  sanatoriums  to  render 
useless  the  existing  type  of  run-for-gain  institutions.  In  the 
meantime  PubHc  Opinion,  through  proper  channels,  should 
so  far  as  possible  force  owners  of  private  hospitals  to  re- 
duce their  charges  to  a  fair  figure  and,  at  the  same  time, 
treat  all  patients  with  consideration  and  honesty. 


^ 


CONCLUSION 

The  field  is  before  us!  The  disgrace  of  the  facts  (of 
which  I  have  related  but  a  few)  still  cries  to  Heaven. 
Though  the  days  of  dungeons,  manacles,  shackles,  ropes, 
straps,  and  chains  have,  in  the  main,  passed,  it  should 
yet  be  borne  in  mind  that  our  great  hospitals,  with  their 
beautiful  grounds,  are  too  often  but  cloaks  wherewith 
a  well-intentioned  but  blind  civilization  still  covers  a 
hideous  nakedness.  This  cruel  and  deceptive  cloak  must 
be  torn  off.  Let  these  mysteries  be  converted  into  open 
Truth  and  Fairness.  That  the  pubHc  has  long  been  de- 
ceived by  appearances  is  not  surprising.  For,  even  I,  in 
walking  casually  through  the  wards  of  such  a  hospital,  find 
it  weU-nigh  impossible  to  reahze  that  many  of  the  inmates 
are  subjected  to  even  mild  abuse.  Even  I,  who  have  suf- 
fered the  most  exquisite  torture  from  "muffs"  and  strait- 
jackets  (camisoles),  have,  in  my  several  tours  of  inspection  at 
State  Hospitals,  looked  upon  a  patient  so  bound  with  a  feel- 
ing rather  akin  to  curiosity  than  sympathy.  So  innocent  do 
these  instruments  of  restraint  appear  when  one  views  a 
victim  for  the  few  moments  it  takes  to  pass  him  by,  it  is 
little  wonder  that  a  glib-tongued  apologist  of  "Restraint" 
may  easily  convince  one  that  the  bound  patient  is,  in 
fact,  better  so.  Nevertheless,  he  is  not  better  so.  The  few 
seconds  that  the  observer  beholds  him  are  but  an  infinitesi- 
mal fraction  of  the  long  hours,  days  or  weeks,  that  he  must 
endure  the  embrace  of  what  soon  becomes  an  engine  of 
torture.     There  is  but  one  remedy  for  the  evils  attending 

317 


3i8  A  MIND  THAT  FOUND  ITSELF 

the  mechanical  restraint  of  the  insane.  At  once  and  for- 
ever abandon  the  vicious  and  crude  principle  which  makes 
its  use  possible. 

The  question  is :  will  the  reader  help  to  bring  about  im- 
proved conditions?  If  so,  let  him  take  his  stand  as  an 
advocate  of  Non-Restraint.  So  will  he  befriend  those  un- 
fortunates whose  one  great  need  may  best  be  epitomized  in 
these  words — the  words  of  a  man  who  for  a  score  of  years 
worked  among  the  insane  in  the  capacity  of  assistant 
physician,  and  later  as  superintendent  of  a  state  hospital. 
His  simple  though  vital  remark  to  me  was:  "After  all, 
what  the  insane  most  need  is  a  friend!'^ 

These  words,  so  spoken,  came  with  a  certain  startling 
freshness.  And  yet  it  was  the  subhme  and  healing  power 
of  this  same  love  which  received  its  most  signal  demonstra- 
tion two  thousand  years  ago  at  the  hands  of  one  who  restored 
to  reason  and  his  home  that  man  of  Scripture  "who  had  his 
dwelling  among  the  tombs ;  and  no  man  could  bind  him,  no, 
not  with  chains :  Because  that  he  had  been  often  bound  with 
fetters  and  chains,  and  the  chains  had  been  plucked  asunder 
by  him,  and  the  fetters  broken  in  pieces :  neither  could  any 
man  tame  him.  And  always,  night  and  day,  he  was  in 
the  mountains,  and  in  the  tombs,  crying,  and  cutting  him- 
self with  stones.  But  when  he  saw  Jesus  afar  off,  he  ran 
and  worshipped  him.  And  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  and 
said,  What  have  I  to  do  with  thee,  Jesus,  thou  Son  of  the 
Most  High  God  ?  I  adjure  thee  by  God,  that  thou  torment 
me  not." 


For  twenty  centuries  the  cry  of  the  insane  has  been  and 
to-day  is:  "Torment  me  not!    Torment  me  not!" 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX  I 

Mechanical  Restraint  and  Seclusion  of  Insane 
Persons 

by  charles  w.  page,  m.d. 

Read  at  State  Board  of  Insanity  Conference,  State  House,  Boston, 
Massachusetts,  May  17,  1904. 

Whele  a  certain  proportion  of  the  human  family  must 
have  suffered  from  mental  disorders  for  ages  past,  it  is  only 
about  one  hundred  years  since  the  propriety  of  controlling 
insane  persons  by  the  aid  of  manacles,  shackles,  chains, 
ropes,  straps,  etc.,  was  especially  called  into  question.  At 
this  stage  of  the  world's  progress,  it  is  difficult  for  one  to 
comprehend  those  former-day  doctrines  of  philosophy, 
religion  and  ethics  which  overpowered  or  distorted  human 
sensibilities  to  such  a  degree  that  compassion  for  the  afflicted 
insane  had  little,  if  any  weight  in  deciding  what  measures 
should  be  employed  in  their  treatment;  while  a  vague  mys- 
terious horror,  or  fear  of  the  disease,  readily  suggested  to 
friends  or  custodians  barbarous  antagonism  to  its  manifes- 
tations. During  the  political  and  social  upheaval  of  the 
French  Revolution,  but  quite  aside  from  any  design  on  the 
part  of  the  revolutionary  actors,  that  great  moral  genius, 
Philippe  Pinel,  was  appointed  superintendent  of  the  Bicetre, 
the  great  Paris  asylum  for  incurable  insane  men.  When 
Pinel  entered  the  asylum  with  M.  Couthon,  a  member  of  the 
Commune,  they  were  greeted,  it  is  said,  "by  the  yells  and 
exclamations  of  three  hundred  maniacs,  who  mingled  the 
clanking  of  their  chains  with  the  uproar  of  their  voices." 
22  321 


322  APPENDIX    I 

This  horrible  condition  of  things  had  existed  indefinitely 
without  a  recorded  protest  from  political  officials,  church 
authorities,  or  friendly  philanthropists.  Public  opinion  had 
come  to  regard  such  conditions  as  inevitable,  and  yet  we  aU 
know  to-day  that  the  shocking  features  of  that  gloomy  Paris 
prison  asylum  were  due  entirely  to  ignorance,  and  "man's 
inhumanity  to  man."  Pinel  alone  held  such  an  opinion  at 
that  time,  and  when  he  requested  permission  of  the  govern- 
ment to  do  away  with  "the  chains,  iron  cages  and  brutal 
keepers"  he  was  generally  regarded  as  a  reckless  visionary, 
almost  an  insane  man  himself.  Nevertheless,  he  removed 
the  chains  from  some  fifty  men  at  once,  and  the  others  sub- 
sequently, without  a  resulting  accident  or  untoward  event. 
Owing,  no  doubt,  in  part  to  unsettled  political  conditions 
in  France  at  that  time,  this  epoch-marking,  dramatic  inci- 
dent in  the  world's  progress  of  humanity  was  not  widely 
known  or  duly  appreciated  until  after  many  years  had 
elapsed.  Meantime  an  English  Quaker,  William  Tuke, 
becoming  sorely  distressed  with  the  depleting  and  repressive 
methods  to  which  the  insane  in  the  government  asylums  of 
Great  Britain  were  subjected,  founded  at  York,  England, 
and  at  his  own  expense,  a  hospital  for  the  insane  where 
lunatics  would  be  treated  as  sick  people,  and  where  gentle- 
ness and  patience  would,  under  all  conditions,  be  exercised 
towards  them. 

This  humane  innovation  in  lunatic  asylum  practice 
attracted  considerable  attention  in  England,  and,  although 
his  "Retreat"  was  conducted  without  ostentation,  but  in 
the  simple,  quiet  methods  which  characterized  Quakerism, 
it  aroused  intense  hostility,  and  its  methods  were  denoimced 
and  vilified,  especially  by  those  interested  in  the  manage- 
ment of  English  asylums  in  which  insane  inmates  continued 
to  be  treated  according  to  the  rigorous  code  of  the  conserv- 


APPENDIX    I  323 

ative  British  authorities.  Chains,  straps,  strait-jackets, 
threats,  force,  coercion,  held  sway  in  practically  all  public 
asylums,  while  the  York  Retreat  continued  its  gentle  and 
most  successful  Non- Restraint  ministrations  to  the  insane. 
No  doubt  theories  and  methods  in  many  English  asylums 
were  in  time  somewhat  modified  by  the  influence  of  the 
York  Retreat,  but  nowhere  else  were  the  efficient,  advanced, 
Quaker  principles  adopted  as  the  prevailing  moral  tone  and 
force  of  an  English  institution  prior  to  1838,  when  at  the 
Lincoln  Asylum,  Dr.  Gardiner  Hill,  seconded  by  Dr.  Charles- 
worth,  endeavored  to  absolutely  abolish  mechanical  re- 
straint. But  their  convictions  were  regarded  as  too  radical 
by  the  authorities  above  them,  and,  as  a  consequence,  they 
lost  their  situations  as  asylum  ofl&cers.  Yet  the  time  for 
a  revolution  in  lunatic  hospital  management  was  ripe  and 
the  requisite  man,  with  masterful  endowments,  was  at  hand. 
In  the  following  year,  1839,  Dr.  John  ConoUy,  without 
previous  experience  in  such  work,  assumed  control  of  the 
lunatic  asylum  at  Hanwell,  containing  over  eight  hundred 
patients.  For  some  years  previously  this  asylum  had  been 
managed  upon  lines  which  were  conspicuously  mild  for 
those  days.  In  fact,  "it  was  deservedly  considered  one  of 
the  best  managed  asylmns  in  England,"  and  yet  Dr.  Conolly 
found  there  forty  patients  subjected  to  mechanical  restraint, 
and,  designed  for  such  uses,  about  six  hundred  instruments, 
of  one  kind  and  another,  half  being  leg  locks  and  handcuffs, 
with  forty  coercion  chairs.  All  these  he  collected  in  one 
room  which  was  called  the  museum,  and  from  that  time  no 
patient  in  Hanwell  was  subjected  to  mechanical  restraint. 
In  1844  Dr.  Conolly  wrote  as  follows:  "After  five  years' 
experience  I  have  no  hesitation  in  recording  my  opinion 
that  with  a  well  constituted  governing  body,  animated  by 
philanthropy,  directed  by  intelligence  and  acting  by  means 


324  APPENDIX   I 

of  proper  ofl&cers,  there  is  no  asylum  in  the  world  in  which 
all  mechanical  restraint  may  not  be  abolished,  not  only  with 
safety,  but  with  incalculable  advantage."  Dr.  Conolly 
abolished  mechanical  restraint,  not  simply  because  it  was 
an  inheritance  from  the  prison  regime  to  which  the  insane 
were  formerly  subjected,  but  more  especially  because  it  was 
the  material  embodiment  of  all  prison  policy  —  coercion. 
As  an  English  authority  has  stated  it,  "what  he  sought  was 
not  only  to  abolish  the  tangible  instruments  of  restraint, 
but  to  substitute  the  power  of  a  superior  mind,  guided  by 
unvarying  kindness.  He  showed  by  reasoning,  he  proved 
by  trial,  and  he  enforced  by  all  the  high  courage  of  his  im- 
varying  patience  and  his  tender  heart,  the  great  principle 
that  the  insane  are  best  governed  by  a  law  of  kindness  and 
that  all  coercion  applied  to  them  is  not  only  unnecessary, 
but  hurtful.  The  credit  of  first  suggesting  Non-Restraint 
does  not  belong  to  Conolly,  but  it  has  been  well  said  the 
credit  of  originality  is  often  due,  not  so  much  to  the  man 
who  first  suggests  a  thing  as  to  him  who  suggests  it  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  display  its  value;  or,  not  so  much  to  him 
who  sets  an  example  worthy  of  imitation  as  to  him  whose 
example  compels  imitation  by  its  worth.  What  Conolly 
did  was  not  merely  to  abolish  restraint  and  torture  within 
the  sphere  of  his  personal  control,  but  to  render  their  con- 
tinuance impossible  within  the  limits  of  civilization.  Under 
the  influence  of  his  example  the  fetters  fell  from  the  limbs 
of  the  lunatic  in  all  English  asylums.  By  example  and 
precept,  by  tongue  and  pen,  he  labored  without  ceasing, 
in  defence  of  the  great  principles  involved,  and  he  had  the 
satisfaction  of  ultimately  seeing  the  practice  founded  upon 
them,  more  or  less  closely  copied  in  every  asylum  in  England, 
and  in  many  others  located  in  various  parts  of  Europe.  He 
found  the  lunatic  an  object  of  dread  and  suspicious  horror; 


APPENDIX    I  325 

he  left  him  an  object  of  commiseration  and  kindness.  He 
found  insanity  regarded  as  a  disease  of  the  mind,  he  left  it 
recognized  as  a  disease  of  the  body.  He  found  a  madhouse 
a  prison,  and  a  place  of  torture  without  mercy;  he  left  it  a 
hospital  for  many  and  an  asylum  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  name, 
for  all  inmates." 

This  great  work,  immeasurable  in  its  continued  and 
ultimate  effects,  was  accomplished  only  as  the  result  of  the 
most  painstaking  personal  application  to  detail  in  his  own 
wards  and  a  long  continued  battle  for  mercy  and  justice. 
Opposition  to  his  theory  and  practice,  some  of  it  honest 
doubting,  but  much  of  it  ignorant  and  bitter  prejudice, 
sprang  up  and  attacked  him  from  all  quarters.  He  met  it 
first  from  his  own  country,  from  English  asylum  officials, 
and  later  from  Continental  critics.  He  met  all  opponents 
in  the  true  Quaker  spirit  and  his  intelligence,  his  courage, 
and  his  sincerity  triumphed,  as  such  qualities  always  will, 
over  error  and  ignorant  prejudices.  When  his  detractors 
could  no  longer  maintain  the  commonly  believed  error  that 
for  mechanical  restraint  some  substitute  treatment  no 
better,  perhaps  more  reprehensible,  was  adopted,  the  asser- 
tion that  Dr.  ConoUy's  patients  were  of  a  different,  a  milder 
type  than  those  to  be  found  in  other  asylums,  was  advanced. 
First,  in  Great  Britain  it  was  claimed  that  the  Hanwell 
patients  were  a  specially  effeminate  lot.  Then  when  Non- 
Restraint  became  the  general  working  policy  of  English 
asylums.  Continental  faultfinders  asserted  that  English 
people  were  a  more  docile  race  than  native  Frenchmen  or 
Germans.  The  same  untenable  assumption  is  often  heard 
to  this  day  in  extenuation  for  the  continual  use  of  mechanical 
restraint  in  certain  hospitals.  It  will  be  seriously  stated 
that  the  original  character  of  hospital  populations  varies 
from  the  mild  to  the  aggressive  in  different  sections  of  a 


326  APPENDIX    I 

given  country,  or  state,  and  possibly  in  contiguous  districts, 
even.  At  Danvers  mechanical  restraint  was  abolished 
about  four  years  earlier  in  the  women's  than  in  the  men's 
wards,  not  because  women  patients  are  less  difi&cult  to  man- 
age, but  for  the  reasons  that  an  arbitrary  position  on  this 
question  was  not  assumed  by  the  superintendent  at  first, 
and  because  the  assistant  physicians  and  supervisors  in  the 
women's  department  were  especially  responsive  to  sugges- 
tions in  this  direction.  Eventually,  when  Non-Restraint 
had  permeated  the  whole  hospital,  and  when  the  chief 
assistant  who  had  been  gradually  convinced  of  the  feasibility 
of  Non-Restraint  against  his  preconceived  but  honest  con- 
victions, remarked  in  answer  to  some  statement  of  fact, 
which  was  made  one  day,  "Oh,  it's  a  comparatively  easy 
matter  to  avoid  mechanical  restraint  now  because  we  don't 
have  the  cases  that  require  it  as  we  formerly  did."  Then  and 
there,  the  superintendent  took  occasion  to  point  out  that  he 
had  discovered  exactly  what  every  man  brought  into  intimate 
association  with  Non-Restraint  had  discovered;  namely, 
that  Non-Restraint  once  established  in  an  institution,  con- 
ditions which  formerly  suggested  its  use  rarely  if  ever  occur; 
that,  as  institution  after  institution  had  been  placed  on  the 
Non-Restraint  basis,  there  had  been  a  continuous,  successive 
re-discovery  of  the  same  altered  internal  conditions,  from 
the  days  of  Conolly  to  the  present  time,  a  period  of  some 
fifty  years.  Such  being  the  fact  it  must  be  admitted  that 
this  less  fractious,  less  turbulent  condition  of  the  insane  in 
the  wards  of  the  hospitals  was  always  the  outcome  of  Non- 
Restraint  and  never  the  forerunner. 

This  discloses  the  real  solution  of  the  controversy.  Where 
restraint  is  permitted  the  general  spirit  of  the  management 
breathes  coercion;  antagonism,  enforced  submission.  When 
Non-Restraint  is  the  undeviating  rule,  tact,  persuasion,  and 


APPENDIX    I  Z^l 

sympathy  soften  and  mellow  every  act  towards  the  inmates. 
The  employment  of  mechanical  restraint  gives  the  attendants 
a  wrong  sense  of  their  personal  power  over  patients,  such  a 
physical  advantage  that  they  instinctively  inchne  to  self- 
assertion;  to  issue  peremptory  commands;  to  use  ill-con- 
sidered, irritating  speech;  to  give  curt  answers;  to  make 
threats;  in  short,  to  attempt  to  intimidate  aU  but  the  most 
quiet  patients.  "  Do  thus,  or  so,  or  you  will  be  sent  to  the 
back  wards,  you  will  be  secluded,  or  you  will  be  put  in  a 
strait- jacket,"  is  the  natural  style  of  speech  adopted  by 
attendants  when  threats  and  penalties  are  at  their  command. 
Having  thus  threatened  a  penalty,  the  average  uninstructed 
attendant  concludes  that  proper  hospital  discipline  demands 
its  infliction  unless  the  excited,  frightened  patient  meekly 
capitulates,  a  result  one  could  hardly  expect  with  a  sane 
person,  much  less  with  a  deranged,  apprehensive  lunatic. 
Even  well  meaning  attendants  naturally  fall  into  such  errors 
unless  carefully  drilled  and  faithfully  watched.  Fresh  re- 
cruits are  constantly  entering  the  nursing  service,  and  only 
by  individual  work  with  them  can  the  highest  ideals  of  a 
qualified  nurse  be  instilled  into  their  minds. 

I  cannot  imderstand  how  the  superintendent  of  an  insane 
asylum  can  satisfactorily  regulate  the  use  of  mechanical 
restraint  if  he  permits  its  use.  He  may  reserve  to  himself 
the  decision  as  to  whether  or  not  it  shall  be  used  in  each 
case.  But  the  chances  are  that  he  only  learns  of  the  final 
links  in  the  long  chain  of  circumstances  which  connect  the 
special  overt  acts  of  the  patient  with  some  affair,  trivial  it 
may  be,  that  originated  the  trouble,  and  which,  by  inju- 
dicious treatment  from  the  attendants,  ultimately  assumed 
serious  phases.  Under  such  conditions  the  supervising 
medical  officer,  when  he  authorizes  the  use  of  restraining 
apparatus,  simply  endorses  the  judgment  of  the  attendants. 


328  APPENDIX   I 

Let  it  be  understood  that  restraint  can  be  used  only  in  ex- 
ceptional cases,  and  exceptional  cases  will  be  brought  to  his 
attention  too  frequently. 

An  eminent  English  authority  has  recorded  his  convic- 
tions that  "there  can  be  no  real  compromise  between  the 
frequent  use  of  mechanical  restraint  and  its  entire  abolition. 
One  system  or  the  other  must  predominate  in  every  asylum." 
In  managing  the  insane  the  first  impulse  of  the  attendant 
is  to  assume  authority  or  superiority,  and  give  commands 
or  orders,  often  with  a  penalty  for  disobedience  expressed 
or  implied.  When  the  Non- Restraint  principle  is  adopted, 
attendants  are  imder  no  temptation  to  utter  such  threats. 
Thus,  they  are  dispossessed  in  advance  of  that  which,  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases,  occasions  troublesome  friction 
between  themselves  and  the  patient.  When  driving  patients 
is  out  of  the  question,  attendants  must  induce  or  lead  them. 
They  must  exercise  the  art  of  persuasion,  of  pleasing,  of 
soothing.  Thus  fears  will  be  allayed,  confidence  will  be 
gained,  and  a  relation  of  helpfulness  and  friendship  be 
established.  In  such  arts  the  capacity  of  the  individual 
nurse  varies;  but  all  who  approach  patients  in  the  right 
spirit,  with  the  desire  to  befriend  which  qualifies  attitude, 
tone  of  voice,  choice  of  words,  expression  of  the  eye  and  use 
of  the  hands,  can  demonstrate  the  power  of  a  kindly  dis- 
posed, orderly  mind  over  a  disordered  intellect.  No  doubt 
there  are  insane  patients  who  would  suffer  no  personal 
injury,  mental  or  physical,  by  the  application  of  restraining 
apparatus.  Indeed,  I  am  willing  to  concede  that  cases  may 
arise  where,  could  their  management  be  absolutely  dis- 
sociated in  its  influence  from  aU  others,  mechanical  restraint 
might  be  the  most  expedient  treatment.  But,  in  an  institu- 
tion for  the  insane,  it  should  be  only  the  last  resort,  since 
so  much  for  the  general  good  of  the  inmates  depends  upon 


APPENDIX    I  329 

the  nursing  morale  of  the  hospital,  and  the  demoralizing 
ill  effects  of  exceptions  to  the  Non-Restraint  rule  are  so 
pernicious  and  wide  reaching,  that  officials  or  nurses  should 
use  mechanical  restraint  only  when  satisfied  beyond  ques- 
tion that  its  use  or  neglect  would  determine  the  life  or  death 
of  the  patient. 

Perhaps  I  speak  with  assurance,  but  I  worked  out  this 
problem  at  Danvers,  where  mechanical  restraint  was  abol- 
ished deliberately.  As  has  been  stated,  its  use  was  dis- 
continued in  the  female  wards  four  or  five  years  before  it 
was  whoUy  given  up  in  the  male  department.  The  annual 
report  of  the  Danvers  Insane  Hospital  for  1897  contains 
comments  upon  this  subject.  To  quote:  "I  am  aware  that 
many  persons  regard  Non-Restraint  in  lunatic  hospitals  as  a 
fad  of  enthusiasts.  I  often  hear  this  subject  discussed  in 
such  terms,  or  dismissed  with  such  indifference,  that  I  infer 
comparatively  few  physicians  even  view  this  question  from 
our  standpoint,  and  therefore  deem  it  proper  to  explain  why 
mechanical  restraint  is  abolished  at  Danvers.  Mechanical 
restraint  may  be,  and  certainly  is,  used  occasionally  upon 
patients  in  general  hospitals  with  no  injurious  consequences; 
but  conditions  in  general  hospitals  and  lunatic  hospitals 
are  so  dissimilar,  this  fact  proves  little.  I  formerly  per- 
mitted the  use  of  restraining  apparatus  upon  patients,  en- 
deavoring to  limit  its  use  to  rare  and  exceptional  cases. 
While  working  under  this  policy,  I  not  only  found  it  difficult 
to  decide  upon  cases,  and  to  convince  the  nurses  that  restraint 
was  seldom  necessary,  but  every  exception  in  favor  of  me- 
chanical restraint  seemed  to  weaken  the  courage  and  resolu- 
tion of  the  nurses,  as  well  as  to  diminish  my  influence  and 
control  over  them.  Then,  too,  as  long  as  nurses  imderstood 
that  straps  and  jackets  could  be  employed  as  final  measures, 
they  not  only  relinquished  mild  efforts  too  quickly,  but  were 


33©  APPENDIX    I 

inclined  to  assume  a  dictatorial,  oppressive  manner  towards 
patients  upon  slight  occasions;  and  this  spirit  of  coercion 
as  evinced  by  the  nurse  in  his  or  her  attitude  towards  the 
patient  was,  according  to  my  observation,  the  starting-point 
of  the  trouble  with  refractory  patients  in  the  great  majority 
of  cases. 

*'Now  that  mechanical  restraint  is  discarded,  the  nurses 
understand  that  they  will  be  regarded  as  incompetent  unless 
they  can  manage  the  patients  in  their  charge  without  resort 
to  violent  measures,  seclusion  and  restraint.  Intelligent 
nurses  do  not  complain  of  such  restrictions.  They  appear 
ambitious  to  demonstrate  that  a  trained  nurse  can  manage 
the  insane  without  the  fetters  and  instruments  which  are 
relied  upon  in  such  cases  by  the  unprofessional  keeper. 
Certainly,  the  Non-Restraint  rule  has  advanced  a  kindly, 
humane  spirit  in  our  wards  as  no  other  measures  could  have 
done.  Nurses  have  no  temptation  or  power  to  control 
patients  by  threats  of  punishment.  Under  such  conditions, 
whatever  native  tact,  art,  and  persuasive  powers  the  nurse 
may  possess  are  rapidly  developed;  and,  as  a  result,  more 
sympathetic,  friendly  relations  are  early  established  between 
nurse  and  patient,  and  the  common  annoyances  and  irrita- 
tions formerly  experienced  by  both  parties  are  largely  avoided. 
The  beneficial  effects  thus  ensuing,  when  considered  in  the 
aggregate,  are  of  such  magnitude,  I  am  resolved  that  the 
Non-Restraint  rule  shall  not  be  broken  except  as  a  last 
resort,  as  a  life-saving  measure." 

Since  that  time,  I  have  been  responsible  for  the  custody 
and  treatment  of  more  than  six  thousand  insane  persons, 
not  one  of  whom  was  restrained  with  mechanical  appliances 
by  my  orders  or  within  my  knowledge.  Because  a  former 
superintendent  purchased  restraining  apparatus  and  ex- 
perimented with  it  upon  not  more  than  two  patients  and  for 


J 


APPENDIX   I  331 

a  period  not  exceeding  one  week,  according  to  reports,  the 
makers  of  such  apparatus  continue  to  circulate  a  statement 
that  the  Dan  vers  Asylum  is  one  of  their  patrons,  I  have 
seen  patients  who  in  their  quiet  moments  requested  that, 
in  their  recurring  attacks  of  excitement,  a  strait-jacket 
might  be  applied.  But,  in  such  cases,  I  have  found  there 
existed  a  morbid,  hysterical  element,  which,  when  properly 
treated,  did  not  develop  the  frenzied  periods  the  patient  had 
come  to  expect  and  dread.  I  have  dealt  with  trying  subjects. 
A  native  of  West  India  was  once  transferred  to  Danvers 
from  another  state  institution,  because,  if  the  nurse  who 
conducted  the  transfer  knew  the  facts  and  stated  them, 
"they  could  not  manage  her."  "But  you  have  had  her  in 
restraint,"  I  said.  "Oh,  yes,"  the  nurse  rephed,  "she  has 
been  let  out  of  restraint  only  two  hours  a  day."  This 
patient  was  destructive,  suicidal,  and  vicious.  She  re- 
mained in  the  Danvers  hospital  three  years  and  nine  months, 
and  was  never  restrained  there  by  the  aid  of  mechanical 
appliances.  In  time,  she  greatly  improved;  she  took  her 
meals  for  a  considerable  period  in  our  congregate  dining 
room,  and  for  a  time  before  leaving  was  granted  limited 
parole  of  the  grounds.  I  confess  that  the  case  of  this  patient, 
who  was  epileptic,  therefore  hopeless  as  far  as  recovery  was 
concerned,  was  a  severe  tax  upon  the  mental  and  physical 
conditions  of  both  officers  and  nurses,  greater,  perhaps, 
than  the  results  to  this  single  individual  warranted.  But 
the  Non-Restraint  principle,  the  animus  of  an  ideal  hospital 
regime  was  at  stake,  and  its  preservation  was,  in  my  opinion, 
worth  all  it  cost.  Besides,  I  regard  the  self-sacrificing  care, 
the  sympathy  and  the  patience  exercised  by  the  nurses  who 
accomplished  such  excellent  results  in  this  case,  as  examples 
of  moral  heroism,  quite  as  creditable  as  many  that  have 
received  public  approbation  and  medals  of  honor;  and  who 


332  APPENDIX   I 

will  put  a  price  on  moral  heroism?  Besides,  what  official 
or  nurse,  imbued  with  proper  pride  in  his  or  her  profession, 
is  willing  to  admit  that  science,  training,  and  skill  have  no 
methods  with  the  insane  superior  to  those  instinctively  sug- 
gested to  the  mind  of  an  inexperienced,  imeducated  layman  ? 
Too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  put  in  the  assertion  that  it  is 
less  the  machinery  employed  in  mechanical  restraint  than 
the  spirit  of  coercion,  which  its  employment  fosters,  that 
should  be  abolished  from  an  insane  hospital. 

A  prominent  general  practitioner  of  medicine  once  re- 
marked to  me,  "This  talk  about  Non-Restraint  is  all  rot;  we 
use  it  at  times  in  our  general  hospital."  This  gentleman  did 
not  appreciate  that  the  relationship  existing  between  patient 
and  nurse  in  the  general  hospital  differs  widely  from  that 
necessarily  established  in  the  insane  hospital.  He  did  not 
take  into  account  the  fact  that,  in  the  general  hospital, 
where  every  act  of  the  nurse  is  imder  the  constant  watch 
of  rational  observers,  the  use  of  restraint  is  safe-guarded  as 
it  cannot  be  in  the  insane  hospital  wards.  Nor  did  he  com- 
prehend this  important  distinction,  that  in  the  general 
hospital,  the  chief  end  to  accomplish  by  restraint  is  the 
control  of  the  patient;  while  in  the  insane  hospital,  the 
prime  requisite  for  the  highest  success  in  management  is 
the  intelligent  self-control  of  the  nurse. 

The  argument  against  mechanical  restraint  applies  in 
large  measure  to  seclusion  of  the  insane.  While  seclusion 
is,  in  some  degree,  less  demoralizing  in  its  effects  or  its  in- 
fluence upon  the  nursing  staff  of  an  institution,  only  in  rare 
and  exceptional  cases,  can  its  employment  be  remedial  or 
beneficial.  If,  as  ConoUy  said,  "Restraint  is  Neglect," 
it  is  doubly  true  that  seclusion  is  neglect.  If  used,  it  should 
never  be  prolonged.  As  a  rule,  thirty  minutes'  seclusion 
is  worth,  as  a  corrective  measure,  more  than  twenty-four 


APPENDIX   I  333 

hours  of  the  same  treatment.  Next  to  execution,  solitary 
confinement  is  the  severest  doom  that  legal  tribunals  can 
pronounce  upon  hardened  criminals.  Solitary  confinement 
is  universally  considered  to  be  painfully  trying  to  a  sane 
mind.  How  can  it  be  improving  to  a  deranged  man,  shut 
away  from  associations  with  human  beings,  incapable  of 
comprehending  the  logic  of  his  position,  consumed  by  de- 
lusions or  burning  with  revengeful  indignation  towards  the 
authors  of  his  imaginary  wrongs  ? 

Can  all  the  insane  be  managed  without  restraint  or  seclu- 
sion? Conolly  always  said  "  Yes  "  to  that  question.  When, 
after  consulting  with  him,  superintendents  of  other  institu- 
tions remarked  that  they  would  return  home  and  try  Non- 
Restraint  in  their  asylums,  he  would  coolly  reply,  *'You 
will  succeed  if  you  are  in  earnest."  Some  Continental 
hospital  officials  were  well-nigh  exasperated  by  Conolly's 
calm,  significant,  qualified  prediction,  "You  will  succeed  if 
you  are  in  earnest."  He  had  been  in  earnest.  In  order  to 
attain  his  ends  at  Hanwell,  he  had  devoted  a  surprising 
amount  of  personal  attention  to  each  trying,  difficult  patient, 
visiting  such  both  by  day  and  night,  watching  the  conduct 
of  attendants  towards  such  cases  with  unceasing  vigilance. 
Superintendents  who  hope  to  accomplish  results  which 
made  his  name  famous  as  a  philanthropic  physician  and  skil- 
ful asylum  manager  must  imitate  the  example  of  Conolly  to 
the  extent,  at  least,  of  giving  considerable  personal  attention 
to  those  patients  whose  conduct  taxes  the  patience  and  wits 
of  the  nurses.  The  successful  management  of  the  turbulent 
insane  without  restraining  apparatus  cannot  be  accomplished 
by  simply  forbidding  its  employment. 

Rules  to  meet  the  exigency  of  every  possible  situation 
cannot  be  formulated  in  advance,  since  the  various  patients 
will   present   such   dissimilar,    unexpected   and   individual 


334  APPENDIX   I 

features  of  difficulty.  Therefore,  the  hospital  rule  maker, 
the  commanding  official,  must  intimately  share  with  the 
nurses  the  labor  and  responsibility  which  trying  cases  force 
upon  the  management.  I  believe  it  is  an  important  part 
of  the  system  of  instruction  that  each  instance  of  friction 
between  nurse  and  patient  receive  consideration  from  the 
superintendent,  and,  if  thought  best,  that  the  involved  nurse 
be  commended  when  she  acted  judiciously,  or  be  admonished 
when  evidently  failing  to  exercise  due  art  as  a  trained  nurse. 
When  the  position  of  the  nurse  was  faulty,  the  better  way 
should  be  pointed  out.  Such  methods  teach,  and  the 
physician  who  adopts  them  is  soon  able  to  identify  those 
nurses  who  have  special  aptitude  for  their  work,  and  can 
select  for  the  difficult  posts  those  best  qualified  for  the 
trying  duties.  Nurses  who  possess  self-poise,  capacity  for 
tact,  and  power  to  rapidly  conceive  expedients  will  naturall}^ 
succeed.  I  have  seen  slender,  light-weight  girls  manage 
the  hardest  wards  quite  as  well  as  those  of  large  stature. 
As  an  aid  towards  the  development  of  such  nurses  at  Danvers, 
each  ward  is  supplied  with  special  report  slips  to  be  used 
according  to  directions  printed  on  each  slip;  viz.,  "When  a 
patient  escapes;  attempts  to  escape;  receives  an  injury, 
accidentally  or  otherwise ;  has  to  be  handled  with  force,  or 
is  secluded;  the  attendant  engaged  in  the  affair,  or  the  one 
in  charge  of  the  patient  at  the  time,  must  send  a  written 
report  to  the  medical  officer  in  charge  of  the  ward  in  which 
the  patient  belongs,  who  will  countersign  the  same  and  for- 
ward it  to  the  office  of  the  superintendent."  At  a  con- 
venient time,  the  patients  thus  reported  are  visited  by  the 
superintendent  with  the  slip  in  hand,  when  such  personal 
investigation  and  instructions  as  may  seem  necessary  can 
be  given. 

Being  in  earnest  is  the  solution  of  the  Non-Restraint  ques- 


APPENDIX   I  335 

tion.  The  ruling  authority  over  and  above  the  nursing  staff 
must  be  in  earnest;  and  this  signifies  clear  insight  as  to 
the  evil  done  and  its  remedy;  certainty  as  to  what  can 
be  done  with  the  insane  by  virtue  of  patience,  sympathy 
and  tact;  with  determination,  watchfulness,  faith  and  en-' 
thusiasm. 


APPENDIX    II 

A  PAMPHLET  issued  by  the  Department  of  Commerce 
and  Labor,  May  22,  1905,  under  the  head  "Daily  Con- 
sular Report,  No.  2264,"  contains  an  article  by  Hon.  Frank 
H.  Mason,  then  Consul- General  at  Berlin,  Germany.  It 
is  entitled  "Modern  Hospital  for  the  Insane,"  and  reads  as 
follows : 

"Among  the  valuable  lessons  which  most  other  nations 
can  advantageously  learn  from  the  experience  and  practice 
of  Germany  is  the  scientific  treatment  of  insanity  in  its 
incipient  stages  as  a  physical  and  possibly  curable  disease. 

"Notwithstanding  the  rapid  and  deplorable  increase  of 
mental  diseases  which  has  followed  the  stress  and  strain 
of  modern  business  and  social  life,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
in  the  United  States,  and  even  in  Great  Britain,  govern- 
mental beneficence  has  not  progressed  beyond  the  eleemosy- 
nary function  of  providing  asylums  in  which  the  more  or  less 
hopelessly  incurable  victims  of  insanity,  who  have  become 
a  burden  and  menace  to  their  friends,  can  drag  out  in  safety 
and  physical  comfort  the  remnants  of  their  stricken  lives. 
If  here  and  there  a  private  clinic  has  made  a  hopeful  begin- 
ning with  the  pathological  treatment  of  mental  diseases, 
it  has  been  due  to  individual  initiative,  and  the  ministra- 
tions of  such  institutions  are  restricted  mainly  to  patients 
of  the  well-to-do  class,  leaving  the  great  majority  of  poor 
unfortunates  to  drift  on  to  a  stage  of  mental  alienation  in 
which  they  become  dangerous  to  themselves  and  to  those 

336 


APPENDIX   II  ZZ1 

about  them,  and  therefore  entitled  to  the  attention  and 
support  of  the  State.  Germany  has  taken  a  long  and  im- 
portant step  beyond  this,  and  to  give  a  simple  statement  of 
the  means  employed  and  some  of  the  results  attained  is  the 
motive  and  purpose  of  the  present  report. 

"There  are  in  this  country  twenty- two  psychiatrical 
clinics  or  hospitals  for  the  treatment  of  mental  diseases. 
Most  advanced  and  worthy  of  study  are  those  located  at 
Kiel,  Giessen,  Strassburg,  Berlin,  and,  latest  and  most  im- 
portant of  all,  the  new  clinic  at  Munich,  which,  in  all  that 
relates  to  perfection  of  equipment  and  arrangement  as  well 
as  to  the  scientific  enlightenment  of  methods  employed, 
stands  undoubtedly  at  the  head  of  all  institutions  of  its  class 
in  this  or  any  other  country. 

"In  his  forthcoming  treatise  on  the  treatment  of  mental 
disease  Dr.  Stewart  Paton  of  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
to  whose  suggestion  and  kind  assistance  this  report  is  prima- 
rily due,  states  the  essential  conditions  and  requirements  of 
a  modern  hospital  for  the  insane  as  follows : 

"i.  Ease  of  access.  The  institution  should  be  near  to 
or  within  the  limits  of  a  city. 

"2.  A  limited  capacity,  in  order  that  every  individual 
may  be  made  the  subject  of  special  study. 

"3.  Perfect  construction,  equipment,  and  organization, 
in  order  that  a  thorough  and  energetic  treatment  can  be 
undertaken  for  all  patients  for  whom  there  is  hope  of  re- 
covery. 

"4.  A  relatively  large  staff  of  physicians  and  nurses. 

"5.  Ample  provision  not  only  for  the  teaching  of  students, 
but  also  for  the  prosecution  of  post-graduate  investigations 
and  research  in  clinical  psychiatry,  psychopathology,  and  in 
anatomy  and  pathology  of  the  nervous  system. 

"6.  The  ready  admission  of  patients  and  their  prompt 
23 


338  APPENDIX   II 

transference,  when  necessary,  to  other  more  appropriate 
institutions  and  provisions  for  outdoor  and  voluntary  pa- 
tients.^ 

"The  Psychiatrical  Clinic  at  Munich  fulfils,  to  a  degree 
probably  not  elsewhere  attained,  all  these  requirements  and 
conditions.  It  was  built  by  the  city  of  Munich  at  a  cost  of 
$500,000.  It  is  conveniently  located  and  accessible;  it  is  in 
close  touch  with  the  medical  department  of  a  leading  uni- 
versity; and  it  has  for  its  field  of  usefulness  a  city  of  580,000 
peoples ..' It  has  accommodations  for  iio  bed  patients  of  both 
sexes,  besides  a  large  dispensary  on  the  ground  floor  for  the 
treatment  of  voluntary  patients  who  come  in  at  stated  periods, 
but  live  otherwise  at  home.  Although  opened  only  a  few 
months  ago,  the  clinic  will  have  treated  not  less  than  2,000 
patients  before  the  close  of  its  first  year. 

"The  edifice  .  .  .  was  completed  last  year,  and  includes 
the  central  or  administration  building,  with  two  wings,  which 
form  the  front  and  sides  of  an  open  court  or  garden.  In 
the  central  structure  are  located  laboratories  for  pathologi- 
cal, chemical,  and  psychological  studies,  a  fine  medical 
library,  rooms  for  the  reception  and  examination  of  patients, 
and  the  private  rooms  of  the  director.  The  apparatus  and 
facilities  for  every  form  of  research  connected  with  any 
question  relating  to  preventing,  detecting,  and  curing  in- 
sanity are  as  elaborate  and  perfect  as  experience  and  up-to- 
date  science  can  suggest. 

"Among  various  special  features  are  bathrooms,  arranged 
with  tubs  in  which  the  water  can  be  maintained  indefinitely 
at  a  given  temperature,  and  in  which  excited  patients  may 
be  kept  without  restraint  for  hours,  to  splash  at  will  or  even 

*  For  detailed  description  of  a  modem  Psychopathic  Hospital  see 
"Psychiatry"  (Chapter  VI),  by  Stewart  Paton,  M.D.,  published  1905,  by 
J.  B.  Lippincott  Company. 


APPENDIX    II  339 

to  sleep,  using  rubber  air  cushions  as  pillows  —  a  soothing 
and  highly  efficacious  form  of  treatment  at  certain  stages  of 
mental  disease.  A  small  iron  door  in  the  wall  opens  into  an 
oven,  in  which  hot  towels  are  always  within  reach,  to  be  used 
in  rubbing  down  the  patient  on  leaving  the  bath. 

"A  ward  of  the  ordinary  size  contains  space  for  from  five 
to  ten  beds  and  has  among  its  equipment  a  small  electric 
cooking  stove  for  heating  water  or  milk,  preparing  eggs, 
toast,  and  other  food,  a  movable  bathtub  on  casters,  and 
electric  lights  that  can  be  so  controlled  as  to  give  any  desired 
degree  of  illumination. 

"The  lecture  room  has  accommodations  for  two  hundred 
and  forty  students,  and  is  lighted  by  incandescent  electric 
lamps  so  placed  as  to  project  the  light  upward  against  a 
white  ceiling,  so  as  to  give  a  clear,  but  mild,  diffused  light, 
strong  enough  for  every  purpose,  but  without  glare.  If, 
during  a  day  lecture  the  professor  wishes  to  use  kinetoscope 
or  magic  lantern  illustrations  he  touches  a  button,  and  black 
shades  running  in  grooves  at  each  window,  drop  and  make 
the  interior  dark.  Another  knob  is  touched  and  the  kineto- 
scope or  lantern  picture  is  thrown  upon  the  screen  and  the 
lecture  proceeds  without  a  moment's  interruption. 

"The  hospital  is  not  free.  Patients  are  divided  accord- 
ing to  their  means  into  three  classes,  but  the  treatment  and 
medical  services  are  precisely  the  same  to  all,  according  to 
their  condition  and  necessities.  Patients  of  the  first,  second, 
and  third  classes  pay  respectively  $2.38,  $1.36,  and  71  cents 
per  day,  everything  included.  Absolutely  no  restraint  is 
used.  All  the  wards  are  perfectly  warmed,  ventilated,  and 
lighted;  the  walls  are  of  bright,  cheerful  colors  and  hung 
with  cheap  but  good  pictures  that  appeal  to  a  correct  artistic 
taste.  In  the  comer  of  each  occupied  ward  is  a  seat  for  a 
nurse  at  a  table  provided  with  an  electric  light  so  arranged 


340  APPENDIX   II 

that  she  may  read  without  disturbing  the  patients.  In  the 
wall  are  three  small  niches,  each  covered  with  a  locked  iron 
panel  or  door,  to  which  the  nurse  has  the  key.  By  unlocking 
one  of  these  doors  electric  light  is  turned  on  throughout  the 
ward,  either  suddenly  or  gradually,  as  may  be  desired. 
Opening  the  second  door  calls  the  director  or  house  physi- 
cian, and  the  third  is  a  time  recorder,  by  opening  which  at 
brief  stated  intervals  the  nurse  records  on  a  dial  in  the 
director's  office  the  fact  that  he  or  she  has  been  awake  and 
in  constant  attendance. 

"The  medical  staff  of  the  Munich  Psychiatrical  Clinic 
includes  as  director  Prof.  Dr.  Emil  Kraepelin,  one  of  the 
foremost  German  specialists  in  mental  diseases;  First  Assist- 
ant Physician  Doctor  Gaupp,  and  Doctor  Altzheimer, 
assistant  physician  and  director  of  the  laboratory.  These 
and  two  other  assistant  physicians  are  paid;  the  others  are 
young  physicians  who  receive  for  their  services  free  board 
and  lodging,  but  no  other  compensation.  The  educational 
advantages  offered  by  the  clinic  form  one  of  its  most  valuable 
assets.  These  include  oral  and  clinical  instruction  not  only 
to  medical  students,  but  to  practicing  physicians  who  wish 
to  become  competent  practitioners  or  specialists  in  mental 
diseases,  and  to  lawyers  who  seek  to  specially  qualify  them- 
selves for  practice  in  the  large  and  unfortunately  growing 
class  of  cases  that  involve  questions  of  mental  responsibility. 
The  clinic  also  serves  as  a  tribunal  of  highest  authority  to  de- 
termine the  condition  of  patients  who  are  involved  by  charges 
or  litigation  which  hinge  on  the  fact  or  degree  of  mental  ab- 
erration. Such  a  patient  is  kept  under  expert  observation 
and  subjected  to  tests  that  finally  give  a  definite  diagnosis  of 
his  condition,  which  is  no  longer  left  to  be  decided  by  the 
academic  "opinion  of  a  medical  expert,  caught  by  the  artful 
hypothetical  questions  of  a  shrewd  opposing  attorney. 


APPENDIX    II  341 

"Thus  constructed,  equipped  and  administered  the 
modern  psychiatrical  clinic  in  Germany  meets  and  fulfils 
two  fundamental  needs  that  exist  in  greater  or  less  degree 
in  every  city  or  large  town  in  the  United  States,  namely, 
that  of  better  facilities  for  the  skilful  treatment,  care,  and 
possible  cure  of  cases  of  incipient  and  acute  insanity;  and, 
secondly,  adequate  provision  for  instruction  in  treatment 
and  in  the  investigation  of  practical  problems  upon  the  solu- 
tion of  which  must  depend  the  arrest  of  increasing  insanity 
among  the  people  of  the  State.  Its  inestimable  service  to 
the  community  is  that  it  provides  for  saving  an  indefinite 
but  considerable  percentage  of  the  victims  of  incipient 
mental  disease,  and  restores  them  to  lives  of  usefulness, 
instead  of  leaving  them  to  degenerate  into  a  menace  to 
society  and  a  burden  to  the  State.  It  provides  the  most 
consummate  examination  and  treatment  at  a  stage  of  the 
disease  when  there  is  the  most  chance  of  averting  or  arrest- 
ing an  attack  of  real  insanity.  It  detects  and  takes  timely 
charge  of  the  smaller  but  important  class  of  patients  who, 
without  the  knowledge  of  their  friends,  are  on  the  border 
line  of  insanity,  and  liable  at  any  time  to  become  suddenly 
dangerous  to  themselves  or  others. 

"Its  beneficent  fimction  is  the  prompt  application  of  every 
known  resource  of  detection  and  prevention  to  the  whole 
insidious  group  of  mental  diseases  which  have  become  a 
penalty  of  the  intense,  over-wrought  life  of  modern  society, 
or  are  induced  by  poverty,  self-indulgence,  or  inherited 
tendencies.  Public  benevolence  and  private  philanthropy 
can  fulfil  no  higher  or  more  valuable  purpose  than  to  bring 
the  ultimate  resources  of  science  to  the  support  of  a  cause 
like  this. 

"Frank  H.  Mason,  Consul-General." 
Berlin,  Germany,  April  8,  1905. 


APPENDIX  III 

In  a  report  issued  July,  1906,  by  the  Department  of 
Commerce  and  Labor,  under  the  heading:  "Insane  and 
Feeble-minded  in  Hospitals  and  Institutions  1904,"  the 
following  illuminating  facts  appear : 

"On  June  i,  1890,  there  were  in  the  United  States  74,028 
insane  patients  distributed  among  162  hospitals,  of  which 
119  were  public  (maintained,  as  shown  elsewhere  in  the 
report,  at  an  annual  expense  of  $10,595,567),  and  43  private 
institutions.  On  December  31,  1903  (less  than  fourteen 
years  later)  there  were  in  the  United  States  150,151  insane 
patients  distributed  among  328  hospitals,  of  which  226  were 
public  (maintained,  as  shown  elsewhere  in  the  report,  at  an 
annual  expense  of  $21,327,228.41)  and  102  private  institu- 
tions." This  "increase  of  more  than  100  per  cent  in  the 
number  of  insane  in  hospitals,  being  accompanied  by  a 
corresponding  increase  in  the  number  of  institutions  in- 
volved. .  .  .  According  to  the  best  information  available 
only  20  of  the  present  state  hospitals  for  the  insane  in  the 
United  States  were  established  prior  to  1850.  ...  To  this 
number  17  hospitals  were  added  in  the  decade  1850  to  1859; 
18,  in  the  decade  i860  to  1869;  26,  in  the  decade  1870  to 
1879;  and  33,  in  the  decade  1880  to  1889.  During  the  last 
decade  the  growth  of  private  asylums  for  the  insane  has  also 
been  very  marked.  The  number  given  in  this  report  is 
more  than  double  that  returned  in  1890.  .  .  .  That  this 
movement  toward  hospitals  for  the  insane  has  probably  not 
reached  its  height  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  com- 

342 


APPENDIX   III  343 

mitments  were  relatively  more  frequent  in  the  years  com- 
prised in  the  second  half  of  the  period  1890  to  1903  than  in 
those  included  in  the  first  half."  The  government  compiler 
then  admits  that  the  ratio  of  actual  increase  for  the  whole 
country  is  not  in  reality  as  much  as  100  per  cent  —  but 
notice  what  follows:  "While  it  is  probable  that  relatively  a 
much  smaller  number  of  insane  escape  institutional  restraint 
than  some  twenty  years  ago  —  otherwise  the  accumulation 
in  hospitals  would  be  inexplicable  —  it  is  indisputable  that 
even  at  the  present  time  there  are  thousands  who,  although 
recognizable  as  insane,  have  not  been  placed  in  the  care 
of  hospitals  or  other  institutions  for  that  class.  To  offer 
any  estimate  of  the  probable  number  of  insane  that  would 
have  been  disclosed  by  an  investigation  which  included 
those  not  in  institutions  in  addition  to  those  in  hospitals  on 
December  31,  1903,  would  be  a  mere  guess.  But  it  is  cer- 
tainly within  the  truth  to  say  that  there  were  as  many  on 
that  date  as  were  found  outside  of  hospitals  in  1890,  or  some 
30,000.  In  1903  the  number  of  insane  in  hospitals  per 
100,000  of  population  exceeded  by  16.2  the  ratio  of  all  in- 
sane to  population  in  1890.  ...  At  the  end  of  the  decade 
1880  to  1890,  the  number  of  insane  in  hospitals  had  increased 
from  40,942  to  74,028  or  33,086,  and  the  number  of  insane 
per  100,000  of  population  had  risen  from  81.6  to  118.2,  or 
36.6.  In  1903,  thirteen  years  later,  the  number  of  insane 
in  hospitals  had  further  increased  by  76,123  patients,  or 
more  than  the  number  found  in  1890,  and  the  number  per 
100,000  of  population  had  increased  by  68.  These  figures 
are,  of  course,  for  the  most  part  merely  illustrative  of  the 
larger  utilization  of  hospitals  for  the  treatment  of  the  insane, 
and  not  direct  proof  of  a  corresponding  increase  of  insanity. 
...  If  the  enumeration  of  1903  had  been  made  to  include 
the  insane  outside  of  the  hospital  population  it  is  evident 


344  APPENDIX    III 

that  larger  ratios  than  those  for  1890  would  probably  have 
been  shown  for  each  state  and  territory.  But  even  without 
the  inclusion  of  this  class,  a  comparison  of  the  ratio  of  insane 
in  hospitals  in  1903  with  the  ratio  of  total  insane  counted  in 
1890  shows  that  relatively  the  insane  in  the  United  States 
have  increased  faster  than  the  population.  This  conclusion 
is  further  substantiated  by  comparing  the  returns  for  1903 
with  those  for  1880.  The  completeness  of  the  census  of 
1880  has  not  been  questioned,  so  far  as  the  enumeration  of 
the  institutional  population  is  concerned,  and  it  was  far 
more  thorough  than  that  of  1890  in  regard  to  the  insane 
outside  of  institutions,  owing  to  the  active  participation  of 
physicians  in  making  returns  of  this  class.  A  comparison 
of  the  ratios  of  insane  in  hospitals  on  December  31,  1903, 
with  the  ratios  of  total  insane  both  in  and  outside  of  hospitals 
in  1880,  shows  that  there  was  an  increase  in  the  ratio  not  only 
for  the  United  States,  but  for  31  out  of  the  47  states  and 
territories  included  in  the  census  of  1880;  and  that  the  in- 
crease in  ratios  was  much  larger  in  most  of  these  31  states 
than  in  the  country  as  a  whole.  .  .  .  From  whatever  point 
the  matter  is  viewed  the  census  returns  since  1880  permit 
but  one  conclusion,  namely  that  the  rate  of  increase  is  greater 
for  the  insane  in  the  United  States  than  it  is  for  the  general 
population.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to  determine  the 
difference  between  these  rates  until  provision  is  made  for 
an  enumeration  of  the  insane,  no  matter  whether  found  in 
or  outside  of  institutions.  Although  the  hospital  returns 
tell  a  one-sided  story,  they  invariably  point  to  an  increase 
in  the  prevalence  of  insanity.  .  .  .  Although  it  seems  im- 
possible to  determine  definitely  whether  insanity  is  increas- 
ing or  not  from  the  percentage  of  admissions  and  discharges, 
deaths  and  transfers  for  a  single  year,  the  niunerical  excess 
of  admissions  over  discharges,  deaths  and  transfers  during 


APPENDIX    III  345 

1904,  when  compared  with  the  increase  in  number  of  insane 
in  hospitals  during  the  past  thirteen  years,  indicates  that  the 
accumulation  of  insane  in  hospitals  is  probably  progressing, 
at  least  as  rapidly  as  ever  before." 


APPENDIX  IV 

Pavilion  F,  A  Department  for  Mental  Diseases  of 
THE  Albany  Hospital.  Delivered  before  the 
Thirty-fourth  National  Conference  of  Charities 
AND  Correction,  at  Minneapolis,  Minn.,  June  i8, 
1907. 

BY  J.  MONTGOMERY  MOSHER,  M.D. 

Attending  Specialist  in  Mental  Diseases,  Albany  Hospital,  Albany,  N.Y. 
[Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings.] 

On  the  sixth  of  December,  1899,  seven  physicians  of 
Albany,  New  York,  petitioned  the  board  of  supervisors  of 
the  county  to  erect  a  "building  for  the  temporary  care 
of  insane  patients,"  directing  attention  to  the  fact  that  "the 
process  of  commitment  to  a  hospital  for  the  insane  is  com- 
plicated and  often  requires  several  days,  during  which  time 
the  patient  may  be  protected  by  his  friends  as  best  they  can, 
or,  in  event  of  active  manifestations  of  insanity,  endanger- 
ing himself  or  others,  be  placed  in  the  jail."  The  petition 
was  favorably  considered  and  a  law  was  enacted  appropriat- 
ing eighteen  thousand  dollars  "for  the  construction  and 
furnishing  of  a  reception  pavilion  in  connection  with  the 
Albany  Hospital,  for  the  detention  and  care  of  persons 
afflicted  with  nervous  and  mental  disorders."  The  Albany 
Hospital  is  a  private  corporation,  under  the  administration 
of  a  board  of  governors,  elected  annually  by  subscribers, 
built  on  land  granted  by  the  city,  and  providing  wards  for 
the  care  of  both  private  and  public  patients.    The  erection 

346 


APPENDIX    IV  347 

of  the  so-called  "Reception  Pavilion"  was  contingent  upon 
"a  contract  between  the  Albany  Hospital  and  the  County 
of  Albany,  that  the  said  hospital  will  maintain  and  manage 
the  said  pavilion,  and  will  agree  to  receive  and  accept  for 
detention  or  treatment  in  said  pavilion,  all  public  patients 
from  this  county  or  any  of  the  cities  or  towns  thereof,  upon 
the  same  terms  as  public  patients  are  received  and  cared  for 
from  the  various  towns  of  this  county,  at  such  hospital." 

The  conditions  leading  to  this  action  were  particularly 
painful.  The  insane  of  the  State  of  New  York  are  main- 
tained by  a  State  law.  The  State  is  divided  into  hospital 
districts,  Albany  being  in  the  district  of  the  Hudson  River 
State  Hospital  at  Poughkeepsie,  distant  seventy-five  miles. 
There  was  no  opportunity  for  the  treatment  of  a  case  of  in- 
sanity other  than  by  a  commitment  to  this  hospital.  The 
commitment  is  a  complicated  legal  process,  consisting  of  a 
petition  by  any  person  with  whom  the  patient  may  reside, 
by  the  nearest  available  relative  or  by  a  proper  public  official, 
annexed  to  the  certificate  by  two  qualified  physicians,  of  an 
examination  to  have  been  made  jointly  within  ten  days 
before  the  granting  of  an  order,  and  to  contain  a  statement 
of  "the  facts  and  circumstances  upon  which  the  judgment 
of  the  physicians  is  based,  and  show  that  the  condition  of 
the  person  is  such  as  to  require  care  and  treatment  in  an 
institution  for  the  care,  custody  and  treatment  of  the  in- 
sane." The  petition  and  certificate,  properly  verified,  con- 
stitute the  application,  notice  of  which  "shall  be  served 
personally,  at  least  one  day  before  making  such  applica- 
tion, upon  the  person  alleged  to  be  insane."  If  the  judge 
to  whom  such  application  is  made  is  "satisfied  that  the 
alleged  insane  person  is  insane,"  he  may  "issue  an  order 
for  the  commitment  of  such  person,"  or  he  may,  "in  his 
discretion,  require  other  proofs." 


348  APPENDIX   IV 

A  later  amendment  to  this  law  provides  for  "emergency 
cases,"  who  need  "immediate  care  and  treatment,"  or  who 
are  "dangerously  insane,"  and  may  be  received  in  an  insti- 
tution upon  the  certificate  of  lunacy  and  petition  for  five 
days  pending  the  judicial  order. 

In  brief,  a  patient  who  is  suffering  from  disease  of  the 
mind,  the  most  threatening  calamity  of  life,  must  be  so  far 
advanced  in  the  disease  and  so  disordered  in  action  or  in 
speech  as  to  satisfy  a  lay  tribunal  of  the  necessity  or  justi- 
fication of  the  forcible  deprivation  of  his  liberty,  must  be  told 
that  he  is  "insane,"  must  be  "adjudged  insane,"  and  "com- 
mitted" by  a  court  to  an  institution  for  the  insane,  before 
he  can  receive  the  treatment  best  adapted  to  the  restoration 
of  his  health. 

In  so  far  as  the  "Insanity  Law"  of  New  York  relates  to 
the  care,  custody  or  protection  of  the  insane,  it  is  definite 
and  effective ;  but  as  an  obstacle  to  the  prompt  early 
treatment  of  mental  disease,  it  must  be  regarded  as  a 
medical  barbarism.  This  discrimination  against  the  mental 
patient  places  him  in  a  different  Hght  than  the  sufferer  from 
a  physical  ailment,  although  the  pathological  processes  are 
more  delicate  and  intricate  and  demand  the  most  painstaking 
consideration.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  patient  with 
pneumonia  or  a  broken  leg  applying  to  a  court  of  law  for 
medical  or  surgical  care,  but  such  is  the  necessity  of  a  mental 
case. 

The  man  who  has  overtaxed  his  nervous  system  suffers 
first  from  insomnia.  Insomnia  is  a  manifestation  of  irri- 
tability, which  is  the  earliest  expression  of  exhaustion.  It 
indicates  that  the  excessive  momentum  of  the  work  of  the 
day  is  carried  into  the  night,  and  that  normal  relaxation  and 
recuperation  do  not  follow.  The  train  of  thought  is  beyond 
voluntary  control,  and  this  automatic  mental  activity  soon  con- 


APPENDIX   IV  349 

tinues  throughout  the  day  and  night.  The  patient  states  that 
his  thoughts  are  "running  away  with  him."  He  is  also  con- 
scious of  inabiUty  to  concentrate  his  attention,  which,  as  a 
layman,  he  usually  describes  as  loss  of  memory.  This 
mental  unrest  early  becomes  a  source  of  anxiety,  and  the 
attempt  is  unfortunately  made  to  obtain  relief  by  sedatives; 
the  overshadowing  symptom  of  irritabihty  is  treated  and 
the  underlying  pathological  state  of  exhaustion  ignored. 
The  result  is  disaster.  The  use  of  debihtating  drugs  upon 
an  already  depleted  organism  intensifies  the  condition, 
interferes  with  function,  obstructs  the  secretions,  prevents 
metabolism,  and  the  products  of  decomposition  accumulate 
as  poisons,  to  add  their  damaging  effects.  Strange  thoughts 
and  fancies  fill  the  mind  of  the  patient,  of  the  extraordinary 
character  of  which  he  is  partially  or  at  times  fully  con- 
scious, and  of  which  he  is  willing  to  accept  an  explanation. 
This  is  the  point  of  progress  of  the  ailment  which  has  been 
described  as  the  ** borderland  of  insanity."  It  is  the  true 
psychological  moment  at  which  a  misstep  may  precipitate 
disaster,  and  proper  treatment  may  avert  a  long  and  dan- 
gerous illness.  The  family  look  upon  the  patient  with 
apprehension  and  with  awe.  The  actions,  manner  and 
characteristics  of  one  dearly  beloved  are  changing  and  his 
companions  are  not  educated  to  the  interpretation  or  man- 
agement of  the  altered  personality.  Evasion,  indirection, 
deception,  falsehood,  contradiction,  chiding  and  even  vio- 
lence, bewilder  the  patient,  intensify  his  irritabihty  and  con- 
firm his  doubts,  when  the  simple  truth,  a  frank  revelation 
to  him  of  the  morbid  origin  of  his  fancies  —  the  only  source 
of  mental  rehef  —  is  almost  never  spoken.  They  appreciate 
the  mental  disorder,  its  threatening  aspect  and  possibilities, 
but  stand  in  awe  of  the  formidable  judicial  declaration  of 
insanity.    The   opprobrium   attached    to   a    confession    of 


350  APPENDIX    IV 

mental  obliquity  weighs  more  heavily  than  the  desire  for 
relief.  Delay  and  mismanagement  follow  imtil  the  patient, 
dehrious  and  desperate,  has  committed  some  oflfence  against 
the  law,  or  has  become  flagrantly  incompetent,  when,  often 
too  late,  he  is  placed  in  the  hands  of  physicians  who  under- 
stand his  condition  and  are  trained  in  the  use  of  therapeutic 
measures  for  reUef. 

The  shock  of  it  all  is  frightful.  In  this  age  of  ideals  and 
stress,  many  who  strive  for  the  highest  rewards  of  cultivation 
of  the  nervous  system,  the  attainment  of  a  lofty  ambition, 
suffer  moments  of  fatigue  and  depression,  the  penalty  of 
overwork.  The  impending  calamity,  in  which  individuaUty 
is  felt  to  be  sHpping  away  and  merging  into  incompetency 
and  lunacy,  is  apprehended  and  feared.  Relief  is  sought, 
too  often  in  vain,  for  men  and  measures  are  not  provided. 
Here  lies  the  opportunity  of  individual  prophylaxis,  and  here, 
between  the  home  and  the  asylum,  the  general  hospital 
may  ihtervene. 

Fortunately  for  the  proposed  project,  conditions  at  the 
Albany  hospital  were  peculiarly  favorable.  A  new  institu- 
tion had  been  constructed,  consisting  of  a  series  of  buildings 
on  either  side  of  a  central  corridor  or  axis,  providing  wards 
for  pubHc  and  private  patients,  an  operating  theater, 
nurses'  house  and  administration.  The  paviHon  for  mental 
cases  was  placed  in  the  rear  of  the  nurses'  house,  distant 
from  the  general  wards,  and  from  the  pubUcity  of  the 
central  corridor. 

The  floor  plan  was  designed  with  an  eye  to  the  needs  of 
aU  classes  of  patients.  It  was  anticipated  that  both  tur- 
bulent and  quiet  cases  would  be  received,  and  that  the 
comfort  of  each  must  be  promoted.  There  were  two  depart- 
ments, separated  by  a  heavy  partition  wall  and  double  doors, 
in  the  rear  of  which  were  two  guarded  rooms,  where  noise 


APPENDIX    IV  351 

might  be  confined.  At  the  end  of  the  first  year  it  was  found 
that  this  provision  was  inadequate  and  the  rear  section  was 
enlarged  to  provide  ten  rooms,  with  a  day  room  or  sitting 
room  on  each  floor.  Six  of  these  rooms  were  approached  by 
a  communicating  cross  hall,  so  that  the  disturbed  patients 
are  removed  from  the  general  ward.  This  plan  serves  the 
double  purpose  of  adequate  provision  for  the  excited  patient 
and  protection  for  others.  Shouting,  rattling  of  doors  and 
windows,  striking  the  walls,  are  manifestations  of  mental 
disorder  just  as  elevation  of  temperature  is  a  symptom  of 
fever,  and  mental  disorder,  as  fever,  is  often  self-limiting. 
The  patient  should  be  placed  under  proper  conditions  and 
carried  inteUigently  through  the  attack.  Excretion  of  waste 
products  is  to  be  promoted,  the  state  of  nutrition  improved, 
and  normal  functional  activity  of  the  organism  restored. 
These  are  medical  problems  of  transcendent  importance 
and  direct  the  attention  and  the  therapeutic  efforts  to  the 
patient  himself.  Methods  sought  to  be  justified  under 
the  vicious  plea  of  expediency  are  anticipated,  and  forcible 
suppression  of  symptoms  is  avoided  unless  for  his  good. 
Harmful  sedatives  and  other  coercive  measures  for  pre- 
venting disturbance  are  too  often  used,  to  the  detriment  of 
the  patient  and  for  the  benefit  of  others. 

The  first  consideration  is  consequently  architectural,  and 
Pavilion  F  has  been  so  constructed  as  to  afford  means  of 
isolation  and,  at  the  same  time,  proper  personal  attendance. 
Much  of  its  best  work  has  been  accomplished  in  the  treat- 
ment of  acute  cases  of  a  very  active  character;  and  such 
cases,  when  properly  managed,  afford  the  quickest  and  most 
satisfactory  recoveries,  and  have  a  legitimate  claim  upon 
the  general  hospital. 

The  administration  of  Pavilion  F  is  based  upon  that  of 
the  other  departments,  except  that  the  attending  physician 


352  APPENDIX   IV 

has  continuous  service  and  is  held  to  strict  accountability 
to  the  governors  of  the  hospital.  He  visits  at  least  once  a 
day,  and  exercises  supervision  and  medical  power.  For  a 
few  months  after  its  opening  the  pavilion  received  patients 
in  the  care  of  other  physicians,  but  this  was  soon  found  to 
threaten  disturbance,  discord,  and  even  danger,  from  both 
medical  and  legal  points  of  view,  and  concentration  of  re- 
sponsibility was  inevitable.  The  physicians  of  the  com- 
munity have  generally  co-operated  with  the  hospital,  and 
have  assisted  in  the  management  of  critical  cases,  realizing 
the  greater  difficulties  experienced  before  the  creation  of 
this  department,  and  the  deHcate  questions  involved. 

The  attending  physician  is  assisted  by  two  internes  on 
the  medical  service,  whose  duties  are  the  taking  of  histories 
and  examination  of  the  patients  under  his  direction.  The 
greatest  instrument  for  good,  however,  is  the  nursing  care. 

Some  ninety  nurses  are  under  training  in  the  hospital. 
The  course  is  of  three  years  and  includes  every  department. 
In  PaviHon  F  at  least  ten  weeks  are  required,  on  day  and 
night  duty  on  the  men's  and  women's  wards.  The  pupil 
nurses  are  directed  and  supervised  by  the  head  nurse,  who 
is  a  woman  of  experience  in  mental  work,  co-operates  with 
the  training  school,  is  a  part  of  it,  and  is  an  assistant  to  the 
superintendent  of  nurses. 

The  standard  of  nursing  is  that  established  by  the  hospi- 
tal, and  this  in  turn  reflects  the  requirements  of  the  most 
exacting  patronage  of  the  community.  The  service  given 
by  the  nurses  in  the  mental  department  has  proved  the 
most  substantial  factor  in  establishing  its  high  ideals.  Nor 
is  the  pavilion  under  an  excess  of  obligation,  as  educational 
elements  are  supplied  which  count  largely  in  the  equipment 
of  the  nurse  for  the  work  in  general  medicine  and  surgery. 
Clinical  instruction  is  also  given  to  the  students  of  the 


APPENDIX   IV  353 

Albany  Medical  College,  who  attend  a  weekly  bedside 
course  during  the  college  year. 

At  the  end  of  five  years  this  experiment  in  the  therapeutics 
of  mental  medicine  is  thought  worthy  of  a  report  to  the 
National  Conference  of  Charities  and  Correction.  Facts 
and  experience  have  accumulated  to  justify  a  statement  as 
to  whether  an  actual  advance  has  been  made  in  the  most 
diflficult  and  least  understood  department  of  practice;  or 
whether,  as  is  unfortunately  too  often  the  case  in  medicine, 
as  well  as  in  dress,  a  fashion  has  been  introduced  to 
indulge  a  passing  fancy. 

From  February  i8,  1902,  the  day  of  the  first  admission, 
to  February  28,  1907,  one  thousand  and  thirty-one  patients 
have  entered  this  building.  Of  these  five  hundred  and 
ninety-six  have  returned  to  their  homes  recovered  or  im- 
proved, three  hundred  and  sixteen  have  remained  stationary, 
and  eighty-six  have  died.  Two  hundred  and  forty-five  have 
been  transferred  to  institutions  for  the  insane;  of  these  one 
hundred  and  twenty-six  were  sent  to  Pavilion  F  for  deten- 
tion during  the  legal  proceedings,  and  one  hundred  and 
eighteen  were  committed  after  a  period  of  observation.  It 
thus  appears  that  nine  hundred  and  five  patients  have  been 
under  treatment  without  legal  process,  one  hundred  and 
eighteen  of  whom  it  became  necessary  to  commit  later  to 
institutions  for  the  insane. 

If  this  special  provision  for  the  treatment  of  the  mentally 
deranged  had  not  been  made  in  the  Albany  Hospital,  then 
these  nine  hundred  and  five  patients  would  either  have 
had  to  be  improperly  treated  at  home,  or  would  have  been 
committed  after  a  probably  harmful  development  of  the 
disease.  It  is  impossible  to  judge  how  many  have  been 
saved  from  an  unnecessary  commitment. 

A  glance  at  the  table  shows  that  every  form  of  mental 
24 


354  APPENDIX    IV 

alienation  or  defect  has  been  represented.  With  reference 
to  personal  mental  responsibility  patients  may  be  divided 
into  three  groups;  first,  those  who  know  what  they  are 
doing,  and  enter  the  hospital  for  treatment;  second,  those 
who  do  not  know  what  they  are  doing,  and  are  brought  to 
the  hospital;  third,  those  who  know  what  they  are  doing, 
and  decline  to  enter  or  remain  in  an  institution. 

In  the  first  group  are  cases  of  neurasthenia,  hysteria, 
hypochondria,  melancholia,  mania,  light  grades  of  dementia, 
some  forms  of  drug  addiction  and  alcoholism,  and  physical 
diseases  with  incidental  mental  symptoms.  These  patients 
are  capable  of  making  their  wants  known,  of  protecting 
themselves  against  injustice  or  neglect,  and  of  enforcing  any 
obligation  of  care  or  treatment  assumed  by  the  physician  or 
hospital. 

The  second  group  includes,  primarily,  cases  of  delirium 
or  stupor,  and  secondly,  cases  of  feeble-mindedness,  either 
native,  as  in  idiocy  or  imbecility,  or  acquired,  as  in  advanced 
dementia,  the  late  stages  of  paresis,  and  old  age.  Delirium 
and  stupor  are  mental  states  due  to  acute  and  profound 
changes  in  physical  conditions,  the  pathological  substratum 
of  which  is  exhaustion  and  toxemia.  The  cases  are  critical 
and  often  fatal.  They  can  rarely  be  treated  at  home,  should 
not  be  committed  to  an  institution  for  the  insane,  and  require 
prompt  and  energetic  measures,  such  as  a  general  hospital 
may  give.  The  question  of  improper  motive  or  unauthorized 
interference  is  no  more  pertinent  than  when  a  patient  uncon- 
scious from  the  uremia  of  Bright's  disease  is  plunged  un- 
ceremoniously into  a  bath.  The  mental  enfeeblement  of 
advanced  dementia,  paresis,  and  old  age,  gives  opportunity 
to  designing  persons,  and  care  should  be  exercised  by 
the  custodians  of  these  helpless  patients  to  protect  them 
from  injustice.    When   property   interests  are  involved  it 


APPENDIX    IV  355 

is  wise  that  legal  cognizance    be   taken    of  their   incom- 
petency. 

In  the  third  group  are  cases  of  early  paresis  and  of  delu- 
sional insanity.  The  experience  of  Pavilion  F  has  shown 
that  the  confines  of  a  small  building  are  too  limited  for  the 
characteristic  restlessness  and  magniloquence  of  paresis. 
Delusional  insanity  is  always  a  most  troublesome  condition. 
Any  form  of  opposition,  detention,  or  restriction  is  resented, 
and  indeed  the  determination  of  the  delusion  may  be  diffi- 
cult, particularly  when  marital  infideHty  or  domestic  infelicity 
is  the  basis  of  the  disturbance.  Husbands  with  quarrelsome 
wives,  wives  with  intemperate  husbands,  children  with 
degenerate  parents,  parents  with  disobedient  children,  occa- 
sionally look  to  the  hospital  for  rehef.  Inasmuch  as  the 
management  of  such  patients  involves  the  question  of  custody 
rather  than  treatment,  and  restrictive  measures  are  appro- 
priately decided  by  the  courts,  the  hospital  refrains  from 
engaging  in  these  disputes. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  insanity  is  disease,  and  that 
the  determination  by  a  court  of  the  treatment  of  disease  is 
illogical.  A  few  patients  in  incipient  stages,  less  than 
twenty-five  per  cent,  and  probably  not  more  than  ten  per 
cent,  fail  to  recognize  the  morbid  origin  of  their  abnormal 
thought  and  action,  and  decline  the  remedy.  They  become 
a  menace  to  themselves  or  others,  and  are  subject  to  legal 
measures  because  they  are  unsafe,  violate  law  and  order,  and 
render  themselves  Kable  to  restraint.  They  constitute  one 
class  for  whom  supervision  is  necessary.  Another  group  of 
patients  are  those  who  do  not  recover  and  need  the  good 
offices  of  the  court,  not  however  for  the  safety  of  their  neigh- 
bors, but  because  they  are  left,  after  the  active  disease  has 
subsided,  with  a  mental  scar,  a  defect  in  intelhgence,  and 
are  incompetent  to  carry  on  independently  the  duties  of  life. 


356  APPENDIX   IV 

to  mingle  in  society,  or  to  support  or  protect  themselves  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  They  are  the  demented,  or  ment- 
ally enfeebled,  comprising  the  bulk  of  the  State  hospital 
population,  a  rapidly  increasing  number  who  are  a  helpless 
burden.  It  is  right  that  provision  for  them  be  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  State,  in  the  interest  of  both  the  State  and 
its  beneficiaries. 

There  is  thus  a  clearly  defined  line  between  patients  need- 
ing treatment  and  those  subject  to  custodial  care.  For  the 
former  the  intervention  of  the  court  is  unnecessary  except  in 
rare  cases,  and  then  when  an  infraction  has  occurred  or  is 
threatened;  for  the  latter  every  technical  requirement 
should  be  observed.  It  is  not  intended  to  urge  that  the  laws 
should  be  ignored,  or  that  an  individual  who  resists  treat- 
ment should  be  made  forcibly  to  accept  it,  without  opportu- 
nity for  adjudication;  but  it  is  most  imperative  that  patients 
who  are  wilhng  or  anxious  to  receive  medical  treatment 
should  have  it,  and  should  have  free  access  to  institutions 
conducted  upon  such  a  basis  that  they  may  voluntarily  and 
with  confidence  seek  admission.  The  fault  is  not  with  the 
statute,  but  with  conditions  which  make  harmful  its 
appHcation. 

In  the  enlistment  of  the  general  hospital  in  this  service 
certain  requirements  are  to  be  observed.  The  institution 
should  be  of  high  standing  and  command  the  respect  of  the 
community.  The  department  for  mental  diseases  should  be 
estabhshed  upon  the  standard  of  excellence  prevaiHng 
throughout.  It  should  be  somewhat  removed  from  the 
other  wards  that  the  distressing  incidents  of  acute  bodily 
sickness,  particularly  the  critical  events  of  surgical  service, 
should  not  create  or  intensify  apprehension  and  suspicion. 
The  wards  differ  in  design  from  general  hospital  wards,  and  '• 
should  be  more  attractively  equipped.     Tastefully  furnished 


APPENDIX    IV 


357 


sitting  rooms,  with  books,  games  and  magazines  for  diver- 
sion, may  be  provided.  The  custodial  feature  should  be 
reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  intelligent  visitation  should  be 
encouraged  that  the  patient  may  always  have  the  assur- 
ance that  an  appeal  to  his  friends  may  be  made. 

It  is  of  first  importance  that  the  attitude  of  oflficers  and 
nurses  should  be  one  of  service  upon  the  patient,  and  never 
one  of  dictation  or  assumption  of  superiority  or  command. 
When  the  doors  swing  easily  both  ways  there  need  be  little 
anxiety.  Finally,  in  critical  cases,  there  is  no  substitute  for 
the  unremitting  personal  attendance  of  skilful  and  sympa- 
thetic nurses. 

The  function  of  a  general  hospital  is  the  treatment  of 
acute  disease.  The  question  is  now  presented  whether 
there  should  be  any  limitation  of  this  duty;  that  is,  whether 
certain  forms  of  disease  should  be  denied  admission.  For 
large  cities  with  numerous  hospitals  it  may  be  expedient  to 
specialize,  and  to  designate  different  acute  diseases  to  dif- 
ferent hospitals.  In  smaller  cities,  of  population  varying 
from  fifty  thousand  to  two  hundred  thousand,  the  two  or 
three  good  hospitals  represent  the  purpose  of  the  members 
of  the  community  to  secure  for  themselves  proper  treatment 
when  sick  or  injured.  The  contribution  of  each  individual, 
whether  through  private  or  public  channels,  is  his  measure 
of  protection  for  himself  or  for  some  one  near  and  dear. 
If  the  calamity  which  sends  him  to  this  institution  is  mental 
in  character,  he  might  demand,  and  he  would  be  justified 
in  demanding,  that  he  be  not  spumed,  when  his  neighbor 
with  a  surgical  lesion  or  an  infectious  disease  has  at  his  dis- 
posal every  means  known  to  science  for  the  restoration  of 
his  health. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  work  of  a  hospital  for  the 
insane  can  be  done  in  a  general  hospital.     Nor  can  the 


358 


APPENDIX    IV 


work  of  a  general  hospital  be  done  in  a  hospital  for  the  in- 
sane. But  there  are  many  forms  of  mental  disorder  having 
the  character  of  an  acute  illness,  and  there  are  many  forms 
of  actue  physical  disease  with  disturbance  of  mental  function, 
for  which  the  general  hospital  should  provide.  Otherwise, 
it  is  not  a  general  hospital. 


Table — Showing  the  Forms  of  Disease  and  the  Results  op 

Treatment  from  the  Opening  of  Pavilion  F,  February 

18,  1902,  TO  February  28,  1907 


Fonn  of  Disease 

Recov- 
ered 

Im- 
proved 

Unim- 
proved 

Died 

Remain- 
ing 

Total 

"3 
,0 

M 

W 

M 

W 

M 

W 

M 

W 

M 

w 

M 

W 

H 

20 

5 

17 

3 

I 

109 
19 

S 

I 

20 

2 

17 
6 

2 

"& 
5 
3 
2 

7 
4 
18 
II 

7 

3 

I 

I 

11 

12 

15 

60 

S 

7 

6 
49 
13 

2 
10 

3 

"16 

7 
S 
3 
4 

I 

2 

20 

12 

II 

5 

16 

20 

39 

8 

2 

6 

S 
2 
44 
IS 
4 
4 
18 

40 

7 

2 
3 

7 
3 

I 

3 
12 

13 

I 

7 
2 

"s 

2 
2 

I 
I 
2 

2 
4 

I 

1 
I 

I 

3 
2 

36 

15 

57 

27 

19 

8 

17 

26 

62 

20 

139 

89 

II 

1 

3 

I 

14 

22 

2 

I 

40 

12 

114 

35 

8 

14 

22 

'67 
16 
15 
10 
12 
2 

2 

2 

12 

9 

2 

I 
I 

7 

3 

I 

I 
I 

2 

1 

5 
417 

76 
27 

Confusional  insanity . . 

62 

Primary  dementia 

Recurrent  insanity 

Chronic  delusional  insanity . 

General  paralysis 

Terminal  dementia 

Imbecility  and  Idiocy 

Acute  alcoholic  delirium. . . 

27 
22 

39 

26 
129 

36 
154 

99 

Ptomaine  poisoning 

3 

1 

I 

I 
8 
17 

I 
S 
8 

I 

"6 
2 

I 

I 
7 

3 

Tfi 

3 

I 
I 

I 
I 

34 

1 

3 

I 

Hypochondriasis 

S 
2 
7 
2 

2 

8 

2 
14 

2 

2 

8 

Organic  brain  disease 

2 

2 

3 

21 
2 

2 

2 

I 

I 
I 
1 

1 

I 
3 

I 

I 
2 

I 

7 

614 

I 
1 

I 

2 

3 

I 

1 
.2 

2 

Pernicious  anemia 

2 

I 

Fracture  of  skull  . .  _. 

2 

I 

I 

Totals 

i8s 

69 

197 

145 

160 

156 

S3 

33 

12 

9 

APPENDIX  V 

Verbatim  quotation  from  the  14th  Annual  Report  (October  i, 
1 90 1  —  September  30,  1902)  State  Commission  in 
Lunacy  of  the  State  of  Neiv  York,  including  a  report  on 
abuses  in  private,  run-for-gain  sanatoriums,  written  by 
M.  Allen  Starr,  M.D. — Professor  of  Nervous  and 
Mental  Diseases  at  Columbia  University. 

The  Private  Licenses  Retreat  System 

The  number  of  private  licensed  institutions  for  the  in- 
sane is  now  twenty-three.  No  new  licenses  have  been 
granted  during  the  year.  It  is  not  desirable  that  the  num- 
ber should  be  increased;  on  the  contrary,  a  decrease  would 
be  welcomed. 

The  Commission  feels  that  there  should  be  a  more  ade- 
quate system  of  visitation  of  these  private  retreats.  An 
inspection  twice  a  year  by  the  medical  member  of  the  Com- 
mission is  not  sufficient.  While  most  of  them  are  admirably 
conducted,  there  are  some  which  do  not  reach  the  standard 
of  the  state  hospitals  in  point  of  sanitary  conditions  and 
means  of  care  and  treatment  of  patients.  In  some  of  them 
patients  are  at  times  isolated  for  unconscionable  periods 
and  restraint  with  muffs  and  camisoles  is  employed  to  an 
unreasonable  degree.  In  certain  of  them  bathing  facilities 
are  insufficient  and  protection  from  fire  inadequate.  In 
some  the  proportion  of  attendants  is  too  small,  and  even  in 
some  of  the  best  of  them  the  quality  of  the  nursing  leaves 
much  to  be  desired.    The  following  letter  by  Dr.  M.  Allen 

359 


360  APPENDIX   V 

Starr  to  the  "Medical  Record"  is  presented  as  an  evidence 
of  the  low  standard  of  nursing  existing  in  some  of  the  private 
institutions: 

Nursing  in  Private  Insane  Asylums 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Medical  Record: 

Sir:  —  The  first  steps  towards  the  correction  of  any  abuse 
or  evil  are  publicity  of  the  facts  and  the  awakening  of  public 
interest;  after  this  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  is  sufl&cient 
to  bring  about  a  reform. 

I  desire  to  call  the  attention  of  the  medical  public,  through 
your  columns,  to  an  abuse  which  should  surely  be  remedied. 
I  refer  to  the  lack  of  proper  nursing  and  care  of  patients  in 
private  lunatic  asylums  in  the  vicinity.  First  as  to  the 
facts : 

Case  I.  —  A  lady  of  wealth  and  refinement,  who  became 
insane  in  Germany,  was  brought  home  by  her  family,  at- 
tended by  skilled  nurses,  and,  for  a  time,  was  kept  in  her 
home.  She  was  then  sent  to  Asylum  A,  where  she  remained 
for  three  years.  During  this  time  her  nurses  and  companions 
were  women  obtained  from  the  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association  of  this  city  at  a  cost  of  twenty  dollars  per  month 
—  decent  persons,  but  wholly  untrained  in  the  care  of 
lunatics,  and  incapable  of  giving  the  mental  direction  and 
help  which  a  good  trained  nurse  can  give.  Subsequently, 
on  her  removal  to  her  home  and  on  being  put  in  charge  of 
two  skilful  nurses,  a  marked  improvement  occurred  up  to 
the  time  of  her  death,  which  took  place  from  an  intercurrent 
disease.  She  was  charged  $100  a  week  at  the  asylum, 
though  the  food  was  that  of  a  ten-dollar  boarding  house. 

Case  IL  —  A  young  lady,  who  became  acutely  maniacal, 
was  sent  to  Asylum  B  for  care.    Her  nurses  were  dismissed 


APPENDIX   V  361 

and  she  was  placed  in  charge  of  an  Irish  servant  and  a  young 
French  woman,  who  had  failed  as  a  teacher  and  was  willing 
to  take  a  place  as  nurse.  Neither  of  them  had  experience, 
and  the  days  were  passed  in  constant  struggles  between  them 
and  the  patient.  For  months  this  condition  went  on,  though 
the  family  were  anxious  to  have  extra  nurses  and  were  ready 
to  pay  for  them.  They  were  charged  seventy-five  dollars 
per  week.    The  patient  had  to  be  fed  on  milk  and  eggs  only. 

Case  III.  —  A  lady  suffering  from  chronic  mania  has 
been  ten  years  in  one  institution,  Asylum  C.  She  is  happy 
and  able  to  be  diverted.  By  accident  I  discovered  that  she 
was  regularly  locked  into  her  room  by  her  companion  at 
8  p.  M.,  the  door  into  this  companion's  room  being  thus 
closed  till  8  A.  M.,  while  she  was  often  absent.  Considerable 
extra  expense  to  the  family  was  incurred,  because  the  attend- 
ant had  a  large  adjacent  communicating  room. 

Case  IV.  —  A  lady  suffering  from  melancholia  had  been 
well  cared  for  by  two  trained  nurses  and  was  improving, 
when  it  was  thought  best  to  send  her  to  Asylum  D.  On  her 
admission  her  nurses  were  discharged,  as  the  physician  "pre- 
ferred his  own  nurses."  Two  weeks  later  I  found  her  locked 
in  a  room  with  a  good-natured,  ignorant  Irish  girl,  who  in- 
formed me  that  she  had  come  to  the  asylum  within  a  week 
and  had  never  done  any  nursing  before.  As  proper  com- 
panionship is  essential  to  recovery  in  melancholia,  I  remon- 
strated with  the  physician,  but  no  attention  being  paid  to  the 
protest,  I  removed  her,  and  at  home,  under  proper  care,  she 
recovered. 

Case  V.  —  A  gentleman  of  means  and  high  mental  ability, 
who  had  an  attack  of  mild  melancholia,  was  sent  to  Asylum  E. 
He  has  had  a  most  faithful  male  nurse,  intelligent,  sober,  and 
capable  of  managing  him  perfectly.  Three  days  after  his 
admission  to  the  asylum  this  man  was  unexpectedly  dis- 


362  APPENDIX    V 

charged  at  night,  and  the  patient  was  put  in  the  care  of  a 
rough,  dirty  Swede,  who  had  been  hired  that  very  day,  and 
had  never  before  acted  as  a  nurse  in  an  asylum.  To  my 
protest  the  physician  rephed  that  he  "could  trust  only  his 
own  trained  nurses  —  others  were  liable  to  drink  and  dis- 
obey orders."  Two  weeks  later  my  patient  was  found  com- 
pletely terrorized  by  this  man  and  complained  bitterly  of  his 
treatment  and  lack  of  companionship.  He  saw  the  doctor 
for  fifteen  minutes  daily,  but  was  with  the  attendant  all  the 
time.  The  man's  habits  were  filthy,  and  he  was  better  fitted 
for  a  stableman  than  for  a  nurse.  The  patient  offered  to 
pay  for  the  services  of  his  former  nurse,  and  to  pay  his 
board  in  addition  to  the  fifty  dollars  per  week  which  he  paid 
for  his  single  room.  This  proposition  was  declined.  Hence 
I  removed  him  to  another  institution,  where  he  is  being 
properly  nursed,  and  is  recovering  rapidly. 

Here  are  five  cases  in  five  different  private  asylums  near 
New  York,  all  of  which  have  a  good  reputation.  In  all  the 
same  abuse  exists  —  unintelligent  care  is  the  rule.  In  all 
these  places  the  doctor  in  charge  sees  the  patient  once  a  day 
or  every  other  day,  as  all  have  offices  in  New  York.  In  all 
the  food  is  plain  but  wholesome,  and  served  unattractively 
and,  usually,  cold.  In  all  prices  from  $50  to  $100  a  week 
are  charged.  Double  the  charge  would  have  been  cheer- 
fully paid  for  skilful  attendants  in  every  case  mentioned. 

Secondly,  as  to  the  remedy: 

It  is  well  known  that  at  Bloomingdale  Asylum  there  is  a 
good  training  school  for  nurses,  from  which  graduates  come 
out  every  year  competent  to  take  care  of  cases  of  mental 
disease.  If  it  became  imperative  upon  these  asylum  physi- 
cians to  employ  trained  nurses  of  good  capacity,  they  could 
be  found  and  supplied.  But  since  there  is  no  demand  made, 
excepting  by  patients  whose  statements  are  not  accepted, 


APPENDIX    V  363 

or  by  relatives  whose  protests  are  disregarded,  the  present 
evils  continue.  Many  physicians  wash  their  hands  of  a 
patient  as  soon  as  he  is  consigned  to  an  asylum,  and  if  they 
do  visit  him,  it  is  soon  made  clear  that  such  visits  are  re- 
garded as  an  interference  by  the  doctor  in  charge.  It  seems 
evident,  therefore,  that  pubHc  opinion  should  be  aroused 
in  this  matter,  and  I  hope  this  statement  of  facts  of  my  per- 
sonal knowledge  may  awaken  such  a  demand  for  the  reform 
of  these  abuses  that  good  may  come  of  this  protest  against 
an  existing  condition. 

Yours  respectfully, 

M.  Allen  Starr,  M.D. 


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